For example, in the world today we see Religious cult groups undermining local authority, rebels trying to overthrow the government, hunt saboteurs waging a moral/class war...surely Clash could benefit from such miscreants?

I know that the govt. model is being overhauled, so I won't go too briefly into this, but isn't it a little odd that a King could decide that he wants to overthrow himself and become a monarchy? Like in Civ, it's very convenient to quickly change from one to the other with only a little anarchy in between...since when did that happen in real life?

Take the English Civil War...the King actively fought against rebel uprisings, but they won through anyway. Perhaps this could be incorporated? Maybe a player could make conditions favour the rebels, not resist too much. When they get overthrown, they naturally become the next elected leader or whatever. Obviously, if they don't want this revolution, they can try to stop it. I just don't like the idea of the player starting revolutions...I think the people themselves should do it if and when they are unhappy with conditions and seek to better them.

From extensive previous discussions we've pretty much decided that the player is the "guiding spirit" of the civ. So the player running a revolution against the current king is a completely valid action. We're not sure exactly how this is done yet... As to what happens if the player's side in the struggle loses, we never made a firm decision. I have included my take on this below.

What happens when you lose to a revolt, or the revolt you started fails?
I'd originally been thinking that you would just lose the game. But just having the player need to cope with whatever government that comes out might be Very fun. I do strongly think that if you pick the wrong side in a revolt and lose you should be Stuck with whatever government comes out of the revolt.

So in keeping with the "guiding spirit" metaphor, if the government change you're backing fails, you've suffered a setback. But as the player you can take control of whatever authority exists and try and make it do your bidding. If the civ splits into two governments, then the player will need to choose which one they want to back, and the other one will go over into AI control, possibly forever.

The ideas about how to handle revolts, riots etc. are there in the current government model. If you are interested in seeing what we have in mind, just read it. Hrafnkell's old model has an awful lot of small details in it, and these will probably be changed with Rodrigo's reworking of it. But if you just skim the document for the general flavor of things, you'll get a pretty decent understanding of how we think things should work.

Assuming for a minute that the player is the driving force in the form of the King and that your nobility are demanding more control and allowing extreme corruption to occur. You could simply raise an army and oust any offending members of the nobility. However, chances are that they'll have extensive private armies and much of your overall military strength will lie in them than your personal guard. A military coup could become a civil war...

Secondly, you could play heavy with them, restrict their activities and rights and hope it controls them as opposed to making them furious enough to start a revolution.

Thirdly, you could attempt to assassinate / dismiss them or remove them in a way without direct military conflict. This could cause cause a terror effect, which might lead to player control or to revolution.

Fourthly, you could live with it and hope it changes in the future.

Finally, I agree with you, it would hopefully be possible to invoke the other classes against the one...although unless the other classes happen to be particularly happy with you, interference may make them side with the nobility in some areas...

All of these are options reasonably available to a King. All have their benefits and drawbacks depending on the state of the Kingdom (skill and number of assassins, etc).

However, lets assume that even with all the commendable strategy in the world, the player inadvertantly causes a civil war and loses to the nobility, who maybe rule it as a republican monarchy (Each Lord in charge of his own province, for example).

I don't see that this should eliminate the player. I personally see the player as the guiding force of the Civ in the capacity of whoever and however the Civ is being ruled at the time. In a monarchy, they are the King or Queen and remain so until official balance of power shifts. In my example, once the player loses the Civil War (eg. Capital is taken), then his control switches from the decimated King's Men to the Nobility, as their newly appointed leader.

However, I think it would be more representative of anarchy and civil war if the player has to maintain his stance as the current ruler no matter what. Yes, they could throw the war and intentionally lose, but then they still have to deal with Royalists, who are now the enemy to the new power...

I also see the player shaping the govt. future in a similar way. If they find they don't like the way the Nobility rule and its restrictions, they can encourage civil disorder and uprisings and effectively start a revolution to depose themselves. However, they won't necessarily be able to determine exactly what will take over...although whatever it is, they must live with it. I think that's sort-of along the lines of what Johnmcd was saying...if the people become unhappy (whether by intentional interference or not) with the current system, they may well return to a previous one.

I like the idea of a govermental split going to AI control. In my case of the Royalists, I see that occuring. Provided of course that there were still large enough areas still loyal to the King. Otherwise, they wouldn't become a new Civ - they'd be the major rebels of the new Civ for a while.

Also there may be some times when, hey, the player will no longer control the game. FE a revolution takes hold and succeeds in ousting the entire royal family and replacing it with another. They kill the entire family and put another in its place changing nothing else.

This could be seen as a natural progression of civilisations. Why then should the player be made to lose the game for allowing this to occur?

Anyway, I also disagree with your Royal Family example. Things would be very different. The economy would most likely be in tatters, Royalist forces supporting the old monarchy would be still at large and chances are that a warlike neighbour may have his sights on your borders while your army's still regrouping. I think this is enough of a difference so that the player wouldn't be carrying on from where they left off.

Besides, I really disagree with the AI directly running the Civ for any length of time, except in states of anarchy - where I believe the player should still have some minimal form of control. Why? I just don't want the player to feel that the game is running them and that their inputs mean little in terms of the outcome. The player should feel that they are running the Civ, even if the AI handles a large amount of the actual runnings.

It's also a little too neat that the player is miraculously reinstated. I prefer Mark's line of them having to live with the consequences of a revolution.

Anyway, I really started this thread to look more at rebels and pirates - the day to day war against the govt., as opposed to one single revolutionary event.

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Just to re-iterate my piracy ideas:

From what I know, merchant trade routes are being specifically defined in the game. This means that piracy can actually be made a physical element to the game rather than just a figure deducted from an equation.

FE, in the colonial days of the Caribbean, there were trade ships travelling to Europe carrying huge amounts of gold, silver and valuable commodities. The military escorts were few and local military power was quite literally a joke. For pirates, this was a godsend opportunity to get rich quick...which is what many did, leading to a huge amount of piracy in the Carribean, fueled by the fact that nations were contracting pirates to support their military efforts. Eventually, more and more pirate hunters were employed, trade fleets were given larger escorts and, in the Pirate's Sunset, fleets or warships would be dispatched to deal with any reported incident of piracy. This lead to its eventual elimination.

I see piracy being incorporated directly as a game function along those lines. I use the Carribean as my example because that's probably the best case of piracy and its effects and also how it can be stopped. Therefore, I propose a general equation for piracy:

Frequency of piracy = total value of merchant-based trade occuring in region / military power in region.

Naturally, this is very basic, but gives a general idea of how piracy works. I'll now go into further detail:

I see pirates as a mixture of characters and spontaneously generated units. For example, I trade goods to the value of $100K and have no military influence in the region. As a result, pirate units are spontaneously generated along the trade routes the merchants are taking. If the value of trade increases further, then more pirates will appear, and so on...depending on what others suggest, I would say that Pirate Captain characters should appear after certain levels of piracy are reached. My suggestions are,

a) Once a pirate unit has completed 3 successful raids, it becomes a pirate "group", has a character leader and any new pirate units created in the immediate vicinity belong to that "group".

b) Once a pirate unit has "stolen" a certain value of trade, it becomes a pirate "group".

c) Once (x) number of pirate units occur in a given area, they spontaneously become a "group".

d) For every (x) number of pirate units created on the map, one will be assigned a character and have "group" status.

However, pirates don't fit entirely smoothly into the existing character system. They are mercenary in nature and could be hired by the govt., for a probably large price. It is doubtful that they will care too much about the nationality of the merchants they plunder, only the money they recieve. Pirates could be contracted as saboteur-style units and sent to other locations on the map to interfere with enemy trade or, more likely, they could simply be bribed not to attack your merchants on a route where merchants of more than one nationality pass through. However, pirates are unlikely to entirely honour any treaty - especially if a wealthy and unguarded merchant of yours passes by...
In this manner, they act like radicals, not being truly "controlled" by the player, merely influenced. However, I would suggest that Pirate Captains could be hired into the military for one-off operations...England has done this many a time in its colonial history...famously with St. Kitts, where a pirate hired to raid Spanish villages returned after his contract, took the money and promptly sacked the town on his way out. In short, they are uncontrollable characters only interested in money...several would probably refuse govt. contracts for fear of betrayal anyway.

So what options does the player have to combat piracy? Well, returning to my original equation, it is clear that either you reduce the value of merchant trade on pirate-infested routes (not possible unless merchants on that route controlled by govt.) or you increase military readiness in the area.

My suggestions for this are as follows:

Let us assume that we have a Trade Route used by many merchants which passes through a couple of mountains, then through a forest and finally across some plains before reaching its destination. Currently, pirate activity is high in the mountain pass, slight in the forest and non-existent on the plains.

A player being sick of losing some of his wealthy merchants on this route might garrison a legion at some point on the pass to act as an anti-piracy measure. This will reduce piracy in the local area (less pirates generated) and the unit may be able to search the area and actively eliminate pirate units.

However, the player might find that now the pirates in the forest are growing as the caravans surviving the pass route are increasing the value of trade in the forest trade route without any military increases there to curb the new levels of piracy. Result? Player garrisons a new legion in the forest. Piracy is reduced...only now it starts on the Plains, etc. etc.

This is naturally a viable method for short trade routes, but what about longer ones? Or routes that don't all follow the same path but branch out across pirate infested terrain? Either the player has to assign a huge amount of military units to the area, or they could take other action.

I would suggest that AI controlled pirate hunter characters can be hired on an "indefinite" contract. These would be initially dispatched to an area and would attempt to eliminate piracy in that area and then search for it further and further afield. However, this would be expensive...bounties have to be large to make it worthwhile. Also, to increase the monetary burden and prevent hire/fire of such characters, a concept such as adding a 10-turn period of notice for terminating a pirate-hunter's contract.

However, pirate hunters should not be infallible. If sent unsupported into a region crawling with pirates, it's unlikely they would ever return. Pirate morale would then increase and make them even harder to oust, just as pirate hunter/military victories would reduce their morale and entice them to run for the hills in search of a better trade route or a new life away from piracy.

For those interested in a bit more maths, I'm now going to attempt to expand on the piracy equation (although in not too detailed a way, as I'm not yet totally familiar with the scale of Clash...)

Frequency of generation of pirates in squares adjacent to a trade route = value of trade passing through trade route over (x) number of turns (x probably equal to 3/4) / proximity of military units to trade route square.

Pirate units: Frequency might also be affected by the average "happiness" of the people in the area. (Disgruntled citizens turning to a life of crime effect). Also by the availability of weapons and some possible technological factors...forgive the vagueness - I'll sharpen these definitions as I become more familiar with the relevant models.

Value of trade = this can also be affected by merchant escorts. A merchant unit with a strong escort will have a perceived value of less than its actual value...the effect of pirates deciding against risking their lives on an attack. Assuming escort strengths vary on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being no escort and 10 being crawling with the best equipped guards possible, then value of trade given by a caravan could be the actual value divided by the strength of the escort.

Proximity of the Military: If a military unit is garrisoned in a square, no pirates will be generated there and pirate attacks on merchants will not occur there (you don't steal from under a policeman's nose). In adjacent squares, pirate generation may be reduced by 75% and for a 2 square radius 25%. Also, pirate attacks on the adjacent squares will be reduced, depending upon the "strength" of the military unit and the morale of the pirate unit. FE, a "strong" military unit may eliminate all pirate attacks in adjacent squares when pirate morale is low, but if pirates feel very confident, they may conduct attacks regardless of the military. I also suggest that pirates with high enough morale may attack military units that are "interfering with their activities".

Morale effects: The first pirate units are created with "neutral" morale. Neither good nor bad. After each successful attack on a merchant, their morale will rise. By defeating a military unit or pirate hunter, their morale will rise very rapidly. Pirate units generated independently will always have neutral morale. Pirate units generated into a "group" will have a morale corresponding to the average morale of the "group". Specific pirate units containing a leader will also experience a morale increase.
Pirates who fail attacks on merchant units will lose morale (although only slightly - this may not register for the first 2 failures or so). Having a military unit 2sq. or less away will decrease the morale of pirate units on, say, 6 or below on a scale of 0-10. Pirates with morale above 6 are unlikely to be fazed so easily. Successful attacks against pirate units within a 2sq. radius will have the same effect.
Pirate hunters do not affect morale of pirates. Pirates accept that they exist. Military intervention is another matter...

Morale also increases the likelihood of pirates attacks being successful. This meaning that a group of pirates with high morale could prove dangerous and very hard to remove.

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Finally,

Trade routes: This model of piracy assumes Trade routes to exist...in other words, routes which many merchants use due to their convenience or safety in getting from A-B. Should trade routes become overwhelmed with pirates, merchants will probably seek a new way to their destination. This will cause the pirates on the old trade route to also seek a new concentration of merchants. Thus piracy can become as dynamic as the factors that it thrives upon.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM I disagree. I don't feel that the player should be penalised for events that are almost destined to happen anyway. FE, how many civilisations progressed through history as despotisms? None...all had revolutions and gradually power has been transferred away from the one and over to the many. This could be seen as a natural progression of civilisations. Why then should the player be made to lose the game for allowing this to occur? Anyway, I also disagree with your Royal Family example. Things would be very different. The economy would most likely be in tatters, Royalist forces supporting the old monarchy would be still at large and chances are that a warlike neighbour may have his sights on your borders while your army's still regrouping. I think this is enough of a difference so that the player wouldn't be carrying on from where they left off. Besides, I really disagree with the AI directly running the Civ for any length of time, except in states of anarchy - where I believe the player should still have some minimal form of control. Why? I just don't want the player to feel that the game is running them and that their inputs mean little in terms of the outcome. The player should feel that they are running the Civ, even if the AI handles a large amount of the actual runnings. It's also a little too neat that the player is miraculously reinstated. I prefer Mark's line of them having to live with the consequences of a revolution.

Well that I see as a problem. If the player knows no matter how badly they mismanage their civ internally, with the exception of outside threats, they know they can always rule some part of their civilization. That IMO is wrong, but is what could very well end up happening. Also the "natural progression" that results in violent overthrows is the result of mismanagment and shouldn't be allowed for the player to take control of the opposing side. Espically if the civ is an empire and its loosing its grip as England did.

About what I said in getting rid of the entire royal family, that almost never happens and for clash we can say it can't and the player always gets a second chance like i descibed below that, but only a second chance, not a third, fourth, firth....

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM Frequency of piracy = total value of merchant-based trade occuring in region / military power in region. I see pirates as a mixture of characters and spontaneously generated units. For example, I trade goods to the value of $100K and have no military influence in the region. As a result, pirate units are spontaneously generated along the trade routes the merchants are taking. If the value of trade increases further, then more pirates will appear, and so on...depending on what others suggest, I would say that Pirate Captain characters should appear after certain levels of piracy are reached. My suggestions are, a) Once a pirate unit has completed 3 successful raids, it becomes a pirate "group", has a character leader and any new pirate units created in the immediate vicinity belong to that "group". b) Once a pirate unit has "stolen" a certain value of trade, it becomes a pirate "group". c) Once (x) number of pirate units occur in a given area, they spontaneously become a "group". d) For every (x) number of pirate units created on the map, one will be assigned a character and have "group" status.

Also just because a ship is unguarded doesn't mean they'll simply fall to these upstarts as they prob don't know anything about pirating.

Also if they do succeed, all the treasure will be taken. The crew might be set adrift, but you'll have nothing left.

Also once created, if they suceed, pirates tend to stay pirates for a while.

Finally just having military prensence shouldn't just lower pirate action in the area, but you should be able to capture pirate ships.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM However, pirates don't fit entirely smoothly into the existing character system. They are mercenary in nature and could be hired by the govt., for a probably large price. It is doubtful that they will care too much about the nationality of the merchants they plunder, only the money they recieve. Pirates could be contracted as saboteur-style units and sent to other locations on the map to interfere with enemy trade or, more likely, they could simply be bribed not to attack your merchants on a route where merchants of more than one nationality pass through. However, pirates are unlikely to entirely honour any treaty - especially if a wealthy and unguarded merchant of yours passes by... In this manner, they act like radicals, not being truly "controlled" by the player, merely influenced. However, I would suggest that Pirate Captains could be hired into the military for one-off operations...England has done this many a time in its colonial history...famously with St. Kitts, where a pirate hired to raid Spanish villages returned after his contract, took the money and promptly sacked the town on his way out. In short, they are uncontrollable characters only interested in money...several would probably refuse govt. contracts for fear of betrayal anyway.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM So what options does the player have to combat piracy? . . . My suggestions for this are as follows: Let us assume that we have a Trade Route used by many merchants which passes through a couple of mountains, then through a forest and finally across some plains before reaching its destination. Currently, pirate activity is high in the mountain pass, slight in the forest and non-existent on the plains. A player being sick of losing some of his wealthy merchants on this route might garrison a legion at some point on the pass to act as an anti-piracy measure. This will reduce piracy in the local area (less pirates generated) and the unit may be able to search the area and actively eliminate pirate units. However, the player might find that now the pirates in the forest are growing as the caravans surviving the pass route are increasing the value of trade in the forest trade route without any military increases there to curb the new levels of piracy. Result? Player garrisons a new legion in the forest. Piracy is reduced...only now it starts on the Plains, etc. etc. This is naturally a viable method for short trade routes, but what about longer ones? Or routes that don't all follow the same path but branch out across pirate infested terrain? Either the player has to assign a huge amount of military units to the area, or they could take other action

That's a good idea, but remember that merchants, even gov. apointed ones, are their own entity. If a merchant is being harrassed constantly by bandits in the mountain pass, he'll go around it, if the cost is less than what the pirates take, or he'll hire his own guards. True you can station guards there to eliminate (hopefully) this threat, but the merchants can also take care of themselves.

quote: Originally posted by The Diamond on 06-05-2000 05:53 AM I would suggest that AI controlled pirate hunter characters can be hired on an "indefinite" contract. These would be initially dispatched to an area and would attempt to eliminate piracy in that area and then search for it further and further afield. However, this would be expensive...bounties have to be large to make it worthwhile. Also, to increase the monetary burden and prevent hire/fire of such characters, a concept such as adding a 10-turn period of notice for terminating a pirate-hunter's contract. However, pirate hunters should not be infallible. If sent unsupported into a region crawling with pirates, it's unlikely they would ever return. Pirate morale would then increase and make them even harder to oust, just as pirate hunter/military victories would reduce their morale and entice them to run for the hills in search of a better trade route or a new life away from piracy.

TK - I think it's unfair to penalise the player for allowing a revolution to begin in terms of points. What if the revolution is to overthrow a tyrannical despot in the name of Democracy? Surely that's a good thing, yet it is penalised...

Either way, they don't get rewarded by that system for mis-management...

Besides, I'd hate the idea of a "second chance". What happens if near to the start of the game you make a stupid mistake, especially if you're new to playing Clash, and there is a successful revolution? No more chances, so what're you going to do? Be excessively militaristic in case of any revolution in the future.

And under your system, how does a revolution take place? Does the player decide that he no longer wants to be King, he wants to be President and thus changed govt.?

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I'm aware that pirates wouldn't just appear because one ship goes through...that's why there would be a value scale for frequency of piracy. For example, if the value of merchant trade was 100K (say that's large for argument's sake) and military power was zip, then frequency would have a value of 100. It may be that pirate units occur per every 20 frequency units. Therefore, 5 pirate units would be generated along this route as huge amounts of money are transported with little guard...

However, if there was a whopping great military base on the route giving a military "strength" of 10, then you'd have a frequency of 10 (100/10) which would mean no pirate units would be generated, ie...it's too dangerous to risk trying.

I forgot to include a few things in this proposition...one of them was social influences. I thought about working an additive to the frequency based upon number of unhappy heads in local cities/provinces. However, what happens when pirates occur far from province boundaries? Also, I'm looking at drawing up some kind of idea for rebel (anti-govt.) activity, which would focus a lot more on population "happiness".

However, I agree...the presence of rebel factions, poverty and anti-govt. feeling (as well as the morale) would most likely add to piracy.

Your point about ships falling to upstarts is valid. That's the morale influenced element. If the ship is totally unguarded, chances are that even a "neutral" pirate force would win through. Although their attack may be thwarted or only partialy successful (ie, some of the value is stolen). In both cases, both units survive, although maybe with casualties, but morale of the pirates will be affected by the outcome. For every success they will become more experienced and more deadly...potentially to the point of taking on the most heavily guarded convoys.

Pirates would only stop being pirates if their morale fell so low for a sustained time (say 5 turns). After that, the members of the band would desert. They may also stop being pirates and become, say, rebels. The other situation is where they are "broken" or fleeing from a situation where the military are intervening to wipe them out. After fleeing, they may find no other suitable areas for piracy, in which case their morale will slowly fall, etc. etc.

I hadn't thought about capturing pirate ships or reclaiming gold, etc from them. Yes, that should be possible. Although their ships probably wouldn't be particularly impressive. Military presence would lower piracy in the area. The presence of a war fleet at sea would discourage piracy...until it was far away enough not to be able to return in time to defend a ship from attack...

I agree with merchants taking care of themselves. If piracy is bad, or if they "hear" piracy is bad, they will either seek new routes or employ guards, depending on the costs and benefits of either. This will aid them in defending themselves, but if a pirate group has been there long enough to get high morale or many members, they may find that their preparations are inadequate...

Pirate hunters should hopefully be implemented if this system of piracy is...reason being that a nation with a small military shouldn't be unable to provide direct responses to pirate activity. Pirate hunters, although expensive, should be quite effective and once hired, can be left to deal with piracy of their own accord.

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Further modifications...

The pirate unit: I see the pirate unit as being vastly different from your standard military unit, although it operates in much the same way.
Pirates historically use ambushes and swift-strike tactics, getting what they can and then "running for the hills" to avoid pursuit and detection. To represent this, I would suggest that pirate units are invisible to non-military units, eg. merchants. This allows them to "ambush" and once an attack is completed, disappear so that their exact location remains unknown to the player and future merchants in the area.
However, military units in an adjacent square can see pirates, although pirates can see units within a 2sq. radius (lookouts and knowledge of the terrain as well as "tipping off").
Pirate units act as military units when fighting military units. When attacking merchants, there are three outcomes: pirate failure (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, but no value lost), pirate partial success (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, part of value lost), pirate success (casualties, merchant defence strength drastically reduced / oblitierated, merchant unit possibly destroyed, all value taken).
In each case, casualties for both sides (loss of "strength" for pirates, loss of defence value for merchants) are determined by the strength/morale of the attacking/defending units. Value loss is also determined in a similiar way in the event of a pirate partial success.

Terrain effects: Pirates are more either more likely to be created in wooded/mountainous terrain with lots of cover, or receive morale bonuses for being situated there. Island chains / archipelagos should also give a similar bonus.

Pirate AI: Pirates cannot fortify themselves. To them, all land is potentially hostile, so their rate of movement is fixed. Their main aim is to attack merchants of any nationality in an attempt to plunder the valuable commodities they carry. Well-defended merchants may deter pirates without high morale, but otherwise any merchant within a pirate's 2 sq. radius carring any valuable goods will be attacked.
However, pirates often know that they not a good match for a military unit. Pirates with low morale who detect a military unit will move out of its 2 sq. radius. Pirates with average morale (neutral and 1 either side) will operate within its 2 sq. radius, but will not enter adjacent squares. Pirates with high morale will act as if the military unit was not there, or will attack the unit.

Happiness effects: Pirates located near villages, etc. will have a negative effect on population happiness. This not only shows the effect that piracy has on how safe citizens feel, but also accounts for the fact that pirates would most likely sell their goods and recruit from these villages. By decreasing local happiness, they increase their own recruitment rate and will also encourage other social undesirables to be more active. Pirates far from villages (more than 4sq.) will have no effect. Their trade with the village will be infrequent enough not to cause any major benefits or problems to either side.

Either way, they don't get rewarded by that system for mis-management...
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I'm with TK on this. After all, if its become so bad that the people have to have a revolution then, yes, you should get penalizaed. You can go from monarchial to democratic rule peacefully, over a longer period of time. Short periods too, though it tends to be disasterous for the populous (take former Soviet Union). There was no "revolution" that brought it to a democracy. (although there were failed attempts). Instead the player can slowly change the society, little-by-little to not upset everyone so much or quite rapidly if need be. The point is, any revolution is bad, because if comes from mismanagement gone unchecked for a long period of time.

Besides, I'd hate the idea of a "second chance". What happens if near to the start of the game you make a stupid mistake, especially if you're new to playing Clash, and there is a successful revolution? No more chances, so what're you going to do? Be excessively militaristic in case of any revolution in the future.
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OK. First off saying your a first time player to these types of games, I've of the opions that there is direct on-line help for you when you start and as you progress through the game, espically at the begginning. This is in addition to on-line help that anyone can access and a manual (since some people just seem to jump in without so much as glancing at the manual...*sigh*). Also we can set a time period where u can restart say after 2-3 turns if its before year X. After that, the second chance rule would come into effect.

And under your system, how does a revolution take place? Does the player decide that he no longer wants to be King, he wants to be President and thus changed govt.?
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From the way i see it, no. Its not like the Civ games in that way. That's going a little to far away from reality and doesn't really show how things are at all. Nor does it IMO enhance gameplay or other things.

I'm aware that pirates wouldn't just appear because one ship goes through...that's why there would be a value scale for frequency of piracy. For example, if the value of merchant trade was 100K (say that's large for argument's sake) and military power was zip, then frequency would have a value of 100. It may be that pirate units occur per every 20 frequency units. Therefore, 5 pirate units would be generated along this route as huge amounts of money are transported with little guard...

However, if there was a whopping great military base on the route giving a military "strength" of 10, then you'd have a frequency of 10 (100/10) which would mean no pirate units would be generated, ie...it's too dangerous to risk trying.
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OK, but there should be a delay, ie that first shipment would make it safely through since the pirates wouldn't have time to gather up. Also just because there is a military base there doesn't mean that absolutely no pirates will be there. One should also take referance as to if that is:
A> if it is a widely traveled area
B> the surrounding area is more patrolled
C> the surrounding area has slim(er) pickings

However, I agree...the presence of rebel factions, poverty and anti-govt. feeling (as well as the morale) would most likely add to piracy.
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Another thing could be the government and religion. No hey really!! I'm not joking. The government and/or religion can be pro-pirate. Norsemen was a culture like this. Such a nation could lauch it own pirate attacks and the current system of military presence may not work.

Your point about ships falling to upstarts is valid. That's the morale influenced element. If the ship is totally unguarded, chances are that even a "neutral" pirate force would win through. Although their attack may be thwarted or only partialy successful (ie, some of the value is stolen). In both cases, both units survive, although maybe with casualties, but morale of the pirates will be affected by the outcome. For every success they will become more experienced and more deadly...potentially to the point of taking on the most heavily guarded convoys.
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Well we should define success then. Would it be a scuccess if 90% of your crew died to capture a 100K ship FE and none of their crew replaced your lost numbers? Would it be a success if you didn't manage to capture it, but lost >1% and captured only a little gold? This needs to be decided if your using a morale system like yours.

Pirates would only stop being pirates if their morale fell so low for a sustained time (say 5 turns). After that, the members of the band would desert. They may also stop being pirates and become, say, rebels. The other situation is where they are "broken" or fleeing from a situation where the military are intervening to wipe them out. After fleeing, they may find no other suitable areas for piracy, in which case their morale will slowly fall, etc. etc.
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Actually if their morale dropped and stayed that low they'd attempt to oust their captain and go after better game instead of just being pirates.

I hadn't thought about capturing pirate ships or reclaiming gold, etc from them. Yes, that should be possible. Although their ships probably wouldn't be particularly impressive. Military presence would lower piracy in the area. The presence of a war fleet at sea would discourage piracy...until it was far away enough not to be able to return in time to defend a ship from attack...
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One thing i haven't seen you say yet, is pirate strength. Each group of pirates have differnt strength ratings, just like every group of ships. Some pirate groups may be so strong that even the presence of a war fleet may not phase them (these would IMO have already have a character as captain). In fact they may attack the fleet to boast of their power in attempt to destroy it (this would be more likely than you might think since it does more than prove how tough they are, it also gets rid of a great military presence in the area and basically makes them THE presence in the area).

The pirate unit: I see the pirate unit as being vastly different from your standard military unit, although it operates in much the same way.
Pirates historically use ambushes and swift-strike tactics, getting what they can and then "running for the hills" to avoid pursuit and detection. To represent this, I would suggest that pirate units are invisible to non-military units, eg. merchants. This allows them to "ambush" and once an attack is completed, disappear so that their exact location remains unknown to the player and future merchants in the area.
However, military units in an adjacent square can see pirates, although pirates can see units within a 2sq. radius (lookouts and knowledge of the terrain as well as "tipping off").
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First off Units like your talking in civ2 and such I don't believe in using (And yes, I know Mark your not of that opinion, but its a 50/50 for and against in the market), so just try and fit your ideas into both types if possible. Also pirates could still attempt to hide from military units, though not ness perfect, i'd say 25-50%.

Pirate units act as military units when fighting military units. When attacking merchants, there are three outcomes: pirate failure (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, but no value lost), pirate partial success (casualties, merchant defence strength reduced, part of value lost), pirate success (casualties, merchant defence strength drastically reduced / oblitierated, merchant unit possibly destroyed, all value taken).
In each case, casualties for both sides (loss of "strength" for pirates, loss of defence value for merchants) are determined by the strength/morale of the attacking/defending units. Value loss is also determined in a similiar way in the event of a pirate partial success.
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Actually pirates could capture the ships and some of the crew could join if successful so the losses the pirates have could be regained after the battle is over.

Terrain effects: Pirates are more either more likely to be created in wooded/mountainous terrain with lots of cover, or receive morale bonuses for being situated there. Island chains / archipelagos should also give a similar bonus.
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Ummm why the bonus to wooded/mountain terrain? If its for bandits, they are similar, but you need to make some differances between them.

Pirate AI: Pirates cannot fortify themselves. To them, all land is potentially hostile, so their rate of movement is fixed. Their main aim is to attack merchants of any nationality in an attempt to plunder the valuable commodities they carry. Well-defended merchants may deter pirates without high morale, but otherwise any merchant within a pirate's 2 sq. radius carring any valuable goods will be attacked.
However, pirates often know that they not a good match for a military unit. Pirates with low morale who detect a military unit will move out of its 2 sq. radius. Pirates with average morale (neutral and 1 either side) will operate within its 2 sq. radius, but will not enter adjacent squares. Pirates with high morale will act as if the military unit was not there, or will attack the unit.
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OK most of that seems fine. However, pirate rate shouldn't be fixed. True they might not be able to fortify themselves like other military units can (though they should be allowed if powerful enough to build forts and such), walking over a swamp is harder than plains.

Happiness effects: Pirates located near villages, etc. will have a negative effect on population happiness. This not only shows the effect that piracy has on how safe citizens feel, but also accounts for the fact that pirates would most likely sell their goods and recruit from these villages. By decreasing local happiness, they increase their own recruitment rate and will also encourage other social undesirables to be more active. Pirates far from villages (more than 4sq.) will have no effect. Their trade with the village will be infrequent enough not to cause any major benefits or problems to either side.
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Pirates could, on the rare occasion, have neutral/positive effects if the society likes them in general. Perhaps the populous sees them as destroyers of their rich neighbors who stole their gold mines from their ancestors. These cases should be rarer though, but they might not steal from these people if it could be a potential "safe haven."

Pirates as mercenaries: Pirates do not hold political ideologies. They will not support one govt. above another and thus will remain neutral in the event of a Civil War, unless lucratively bribed to join one side or the other. Pirate units or groups with leaders may be recruited as Privateers, depending upon the leader's personality and his affiliation for local and national govt. The pirate can be given a location on the map to travel to. Once there, they will function as pirates once more until destroyed or recruited as Privateers. Rather than being on contract, they will act on a lump sum basis, varying on how far away the proposed location is and possibly on the value of trade in the surrounding area of the proposed location.
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Privateers should, over time, if they follow the same government policy, be allowed to "favor" one government (course they'd have to bribe them first). FE during the caribean age you meantioned aboved, govenors often gave titles to pirates who raided their enimies and land as well. This "bribe" would hopefully be remembered later on, and often if it was a lot, though not always, it was. Thus they still act as pirates, but will not attack one nation generally (exceptions if they put no forces surrounding tons of treasure).

Listen, I'm not against this idea of starting revolutions yourself if you think its for the overall betterment of your civ, just it shouldn't be easy, in fact, the opposite. Also it shouldn't be allowed if you as the player have purposefully made the revolution nessasry because of how you managed your government. That would be getting the cheap way out. What I'm saying is the player must have A> certain % of the populous in unrest against the government or against what your rebelling against. B> the resources to do it. A heavily militaristic society that uses it military to suppress it populous rather than supress it neighbors will be unlikely to have a revolution last more than 1 turn. C> Even if it does occur, the player must fight for the right to rule his civ (again) or atleast a piece of it.

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Temporay Digression here, but if 1 successful revolution occurs, it increases the likelyhood of others, while the opposite is true. This should be implimented and it isn't really hard.
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Stuff2, I strongly disagree with your proposal. To clarify, here is how I see the player in Clash:

The guiding spirit of the Civilisation, in the form of the current ruler of the Civilisation.

The player is a guiding spirit because he/she outlives the lifespan of a monarchy or even an entire governmental system. However, I just hate the idea that a player can totally foul up their Civ and, when the people rise against them, magically become leader of the rebel forces, regain control of the Civ and most likely start all over again. In fact, I hate the idea that the player can "possess", if you like, whatever influential character he/she pleases. Although I see nothing wrong with seeing through their eyes (in micromanagement) or in receiving information reliably available to them (their personal spies report rebel activity near the city, maybe an attack will occur soon...).

I expect you're wondering how I define the "current ruler" of the Civ, especially when, for example, rebels occupy 75% of the territories, but a strong Royalist army holds the remainder and is unlikely to be broken. Since the rebels hold the main area of the Civ, they could be called "rulers", yet the monarchy is still the official "ruler" of the Civ as it was known before the revolution...

Quite simply, I define the "current ruler" as being the leader of whatever administration currently commands the capital. In the above example, if the Royalists still hold the capital city then the player is "stuck" with them, although if he/she wanted the rebels to win through, it would be possible to "throw" the defences and allow the rebels to capture the capital. The penalty being that on their way they would cause havoc, destruction, death, etc. and leave the place in a sorry state for whatever takes control of the Civ. Pretty much Mark's point.

This also solves the problem of what happens in the event of a split in the civilisation, causing two separate nations to evolve...the player commands the one which still holds the capital and retains the original name of the Civ.

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Stuff2, your idea about the guerilla leader is possible. If the Civ capital gets captured by a foreign power, then the player could be eliminated or forced to rule the remainder of states in anarchy until a new Civ was formed. However, most likely the Civ would surrender, etc. or be conquered, resulting in the player being "eliminated".

I would say no...this should not be the case. As Stuff2 suggested, the player could become a guerilla leader, but I see a different way out. I talked earlier of colonialism, where the player could rule under command from a foreign power as a "colony" or "empire province" or whatever. The new Mother Country would place restrictions on what could and could not be done, such as no private armies, must give 40% of all tax revenue to Mother Country, etc. but the player could still "rule".

This would give the opportunity for the player then to initiate covert strategies against their oppressors to construct a rebel force capable of taking back at least part of the Civilisation. It might take a good few turns and any mistake or detection could result in starting all over again, but nevertheless, the struggle to reclaim the Civ could continue. Exactly when the player would cease being the colonial magistrate and start being the "rebel leader" or whatever, I'm not sure. But it's just an idea at the moment.

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I still don't like TK's idea of point penalising. Although yes, I accept it is possible to have only partial, non-civil war type revolutions, such as the signing of the Magna Carta. However, it's equally possible to have vicious bloody revolutions that actually achieve very little.

I see where you're coming from. A civil war would happen when the people were very angry at a ruler's actions...but wouldn't it happen if they felt "oppressed" anyway? Even in a monarchy system where the player makes sure everyone is either happy or content or whatever you choose to say, some people will still be unhappy at the idea of one person having total control of anything that happens. The "hidden" unhappiness factor, if you like. Bear in mind that something as simple as a player imposing a quota on fishing limits might cause every fisherman in the kingdom to have this "hidden" unhappiness. That might lead to anti-govt. actions, which in turn will spark off any bad feeling elsewhere and cause visible unhappiness. This is merely the beginning of the spiral which gradually leads to the player sending in the military to control the situation and the local people making the decision as to whether they want the situation to be "controlled" or not. If the army is strong enough, or the ruler popular enough or the people content enough not to take up arms, the revolution might be quashed. Alternatively, such an action might be the spark that ignites the people against the crown, causing a Civil War. An influential rebel leader, good at winning people to his cause, would also have an effect here.

In this case, the player has made one or two decisions that didn't go down well with everybody and this has led to the starting of a revolution. I see that as how the revolutions occur, which isn't necessarily a direct fault of the player and why they shouldn't be penalised for it.

The second chance rule...hate it, always will hate it. The player has no "chances". They continue until either time ends on them or until a foreign power literally wipes them off the map. Or whatever other "ending" situations occur.

As for on-line help, I agree. I also think that there should be perhaps some kind of toggle for on-line help that informs specifically of revolutionary events, but only AFTER the trigger event has occured, citing the possibility that rebel action may happen. I don't want the help to tell the player "don't do this, you might cause a rebellion"...let them learn by their own mistakes.

Mark/Stuff2 - I'm all in favour of the player changing character, but I don't believe they should have a direct say in who/what they become. They should change character as a result of events in the game, not from their own choice.

LGJ - Your last point I disagree with. I peronally prefer the idea that the rebels are the unknown enemy. The AI controls them, maybe it makes dealings with foreign powers, ceding them territory if they are successful, etc. That way, even if the player sympathises with them and makes it as easy as possible for them to win, when he/she takes over their administration, they may find foreign powers are demanding that promises be fulfilled, etc.

Actually, I'm going to start a topic on revolutions specifically. Maybe you'll all curse me for that, but it's getting hard talking about piracy and revolutions intermittently in the same thread. It's also making my posts very very long, which isn't helping anybody.

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BACK TO PIRACY

Why should the first shipment necessarily make it through? A whopping great merchant unit taking 100K of goods across a long perilous land route and having little or no guard will automatically make it? I disagree. To set up a large caravan such as that, news will spread of your route, destination and cargo. Pirates would be waiting for you...that I could guarantee. That's why the frequency idea would come in. Pirates would attack it as soon as it went out of local territory (I don't like the idea of pirates being generated in villages themselves, etc).

I agree. A military base won't necessarily eliminate piracy, but it will reduce it if pirate morale is low (ie, the area has slim picking or pirates are new and inexperienced). This is already accounted for in the 2sq. radius of military units concept I mentioned earlier.

Norsemen were pro-pirate, but not usually against each other! Yes, there were village and clan feuds, which could be taken into account in the game, but piracy was limited to other nations. Although I like the idea that Viking cultures, for example, generate more pirate units. However, I would suggest that Norse cultures, etc. rather than generating pirates should be blessed with the ability to either be able to negotiate with all pirates, or to be able to physically command them as units, or to be able to send them around the world at reduced or even at no cost. Alternatively, piratical activity conducted by commissioned Viking pirates could add to the revenue of the Civ. Maybe their culture could build pirates the same way cultures build merchants? I don't know.

Even so, the pirates generated by merchant trade, even if Norse, would be different. I don't see the frequency equation being changed due to religion/culture, although the Civ's ability to deal with or react to pirates should be changed. If you want a culture to suffer from piracy, then make their pirate hunters worse or reduce the effect of their military to a 1sq. radius.

Success doesn't look at casualties. Success looks at whether or not the pirates plundered any value from the caravan and if so, how much. No success = no value, partial success = some value, total success = all value. To account for them recruiting, every turn they don't attack, their "strength" would return closer to its natural level (recruiting). It won't add to the game to add the element of merchant crews joining pirate bands.

Ousting the captain could occur. Actually, I like it. If the unit/group has an assigned character and morale falls, then the character could be executed in mutiny and replaced. Morale would then return to neutral. However, in independent units, I still think they should disband.

Pirate "strength"...yes, I have avoided that term. The reason being that I see pirates operating more on morale than strength. Chances are, they're not going to be that differently armed to the forces they're attacking. Certainly not after a couple of victories and weapons being stolen, etc.

Assuming for a moment that "strength" is determined in the old Civ-type style of 3-attack, 2-defence, then all pirate units should start the same. Independent pirates are unlikely to change. However, groups might. A large group of pirates might attack as one rather than several small groups. In this case, their strength could be related to the number of pirate units in the group. E.g. for every 6th unit added, rather than a new unit being generated, an existing one is upgraded into a higher "strength" rating. Also, a unit carrying a character might be intitled to a strength increase as well as a morale increase.

Now, I also referred to "strength" as being, if you like, health or numbers of the unit. In this case, casualties may be replaced, etc, although I still think they should just regenerate their health/numbers over a short period of time.

Yes, I refer to the military unit in a Civ style manner. That's because I'm more familiar with that style and because I'm not entirely sure how a "unit" in the other proposed style would work. As and when I work that idea through, I'll put modifications up here.

Pirates hiding on 25-50% chance. Yes, I like that. Then they'd naturally move away if they weren't going to attack, (...live to fight another day) or ambush the military unit.

Right - I'm not making a distinction between pirates as in Carribean pirates and bandits. I call all such unit types "pirates". Simply because their motives are the same, only their terrain of operation is different.

In an island chain, after crippling a ship, you can sail away and lose pursuers. The same applies in mountains and woods. These pirates will know their terrain well...probably better than a patrolling unit. They will know about the almost invisible goat-track that takes off 2hours from the mountain ascent, allowing them to quickly escape. A patrol chasing them will go the only way it knows - the long way, and thus lose them.

Also, it's a lot easier to hide a bandit camp in a dense forest than it would be on a wide-open plain where you can see for miles.

Hmm, I'm still undecided about pirates and forts. It just wouldn't happen unless they started acting as a Mafia in the local area. If they became strong enough to build forts, they'd probably be strong enough to start a village. That village would then "build" further pirate units and add to strength of existing ones. Although I don't know if that's something good to add to the model or not.

I see your point about swamp movement, etc. However, pirates would only be restricted when moving in areas they didn't know so well. How do you define what areas they don't know? I think they should be given a fixed movement rate over all terrain. They can still be outrun by military in the open, but in the forests, they're in their element...

No. Pirates would not be positive to the village's happiness. They will always be negative. The positive effects you talk about are positive for the rebellious members of the Civ, the anti-govt. groups. Since happiness is looked at purely from the govt. perspective, people happy about pirates will be unhappy about the govt. I'm not including Norse cultures, who would perhaps be unaffected by pirates at any distance.

Ah...now a distinction is made between pirate and privateer. I agree. A pirate who becomes affiliated to a Civ (the Civ gives them two or more contracts) should be able to be bribed into becoming a Privateer unit. This is how I see this working:

On the revolution thing, I don't see anything in Stuff2's post saying the revolt automatically succeeds... I would have disagreed with the approach if I thought so. The AI will always play the other side to the best of its ability on such occasions. I think we agree that when you change horses (who the spirit works through) you need to Fight for control as usual. If you lose, you are stuck with the same old government with depleted resources from the revolution itself. If you attempt to overthrow the government without a very solid base, you will just be hurting your civ.

There are also timing issues we'd need if we do such switches. Otherwise players can do things like:
1. ensure powerful societal elements are pissed off enough to revolt
2. intentionally move all 'royalist' military units off to some other country to basically guarantee the revolt's success
3. start the revolt.

Or even more bizarre things can happen by the player switching back and forth on a per-turn basis... Take government, do something really stupid, take rebels do something smart, repeat as needed...
So if we go this way, we would probably need a time lag of some sort for the 'transfer' to occur. Its a sticky problem...

The Diamond:

Your 'who holds the capital' proposal is IMO too limiting. FE then in an American revolutionary war context, the player could Never become the Americans, but be forced to remain with the British. Or rather the only way you allow this is if the capital gets overrun by some other power. IMO the player Must be allowed to make the choice of which segment to play themselves. I agree there are lots of potential pitfalls to doing it the way I'm pushing (I don't recall if the current Govt model makes a definitive stand on this either way). But I think if the design traps can be overcome it will result in a better experience for the player.

All: