Civil Wars!

[Metaliturtle]

I know some people really didn't like these in Civ 2 unless they happened to the computer, but I thought Civil Wars were awesome, I'd even cheat a barbarian army outside my capital if I was close to winning and wanted to keep playing. Civil Wars were a unique and awesome part of Civ 2 and I would like to see them in Civ 4 with a few changes.

Capturing a capital shouldn't trigger a Civil war, The brits captured Washington in 1812 and The U.S. didn't go into civil war (not right away at least).

So how would one trigger a civil war?

Well the obvious example to me would be to anger a large group of your people.

For example, say you are a Republic and you start a war with someone, fine, but after 50 turns you're still at war, the people nearest that civ dislike being at war with them and revolt en masse.

Similarly, Crazy Communist man keeps sacrificing his citizens to the Gods of production, resulting in a lower class uprising and a very interesting split.

These could even be turned into a "revolutionary" game, where factors such as being across an ocean too early could lead to a revolution by colonists who are sick of getting ruled by a King on another land thousands of miles away.

Revolutions and Civil wars could be turned on and off at the player's discretion.

What do you guys think?

[Vince278]

I always liked the idea of civil wars in Civ. Maybe you can have it determined by corruption (ie. the cities furthest from your capital would be more likely to break away). That is historically accurate in many cases (the American Revolution being one good example).

[Fosse]

Tie happiness to it, and then make the happiness model more complex. As it is now, only gross neglicgence will lead to a city rioting for more than a single turn (if that), but in reality large populations are much harder to control

Enough unhappiness (which can be seen specifically in game terms as dislike for the controling regieme) and you run the risk of parts of the empire fragmenting off.

Making civil wars like this would only work if happiness is harder to control (ie, based on other factors than city size and city improvments).

[Nikolai]

I am all for that Fosse. I would also like(if the features is implemented in a way that makes it possible), an empire with lots of cultures and religions or an empire that has grown too fast without checking its back so to speak regarding its new inhabitants(ancient Greece being a good example), to have a greater risk of entering a civil war.

[anti patriot]

all good ideas!

[sykodude]

I'm all for this. And we really need a better happiness model. While we're at it, I think it would be a good idea to differentiate between citizens who are merely unhappy (who will strike and riot) and those who are actively resisting your rule (who will precipitate a full-blown uprising). Newly conquered peoples who resist your occupation would automatically fall into the second category, instead of just kinda standing around doing nothing like they do now.

[fezick31]

I too miss the civil wars and empire splitting of Civ 2. It seems unrealistic that an empire could grow world spanning and remain stable, even given the technology level of today, let alone some I've seen in Civ 3 that do it before the automobile.

What about a secondary culture system? One of the reasons USA broke from Britain was that they no longer felt they were British, but something unique - Americans. The British fueled this by preventing any industry or British cultural icons from being developed in the colonies.

This could be represented by cities that when founded, automatically generate negative culture (perhaps based on distance from capitol or some other yet to be determined factor). If specific steps are not taken to integrate the city into the mainstream culture of the parent civ, they could ultimately break away.

However, there would need to be a concentration of cities for this to take effect

[fezick31]

Also, what does everyone think about frequency? Should splits happen several times during a games, once or twice, or rarely, say once every 4 or 5 games?

[Vince278]

Should happen everytime the conditions are right. The challenge would be in trying to prevent it.

[Kuciwalker]

There should be a stability value for your empire (I've detailed precisely how it could work several times before in this forum) that, once it goes under a certain value, triggers a catastropic split of your empire into several (up to probably 5-6) smaller empires. If you were very close to that level, you could have "erosion" of your empire - border areas more likely to proclaim independence, etc.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by Vince278
Should happen everytime the conditions are right. The challenge would be in trying to prevent it.

I guess that's what I'm asking, what are the conditions? It could be easy, especially on a huge map, to accidentally make the entire game about keeping your empire together. It could be fun for a scenario, but it could get frustrating for normal play (kinda like the corruption "feature" in Civ3 - good idea, but it turned out to be the entire game sometimes to keep it in check).

[Max Sinister]

@Kuciwalker: It could work like that. Many years before the Roman empire broke apart, it was eroding - legion commanders who declared themselves emperor and started to march to Rome, emperors who didn't do much but defend themselves against these commanders, warlords who declared whole provinces independent...

[Apocalypse]

I think there needs to be more of a difference between a city rebelling and not contributing and a normal city. There needs to be something in between where production is just kinda cut due to some sort of unhappiness. Different from corruption, but kinda like it.

[Epistax]

What if you purposely incited a civil war then reunited the country to eliminate corruption? Works in real life (assuming your army can pull its weight).

[Apocalypse]

Well, that's kinda void considering Corruption looks to be out.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think it'll be completely gone; I think Soren meant he was reworking it to be less unfun.

[Apocalypse]

Out as we know it at least.

[Kuciwalker]

Thankfully.

[PresidentMarcos]

I think cIV should reflect the fact that historically, most war has been between people of the same civilization fighting amongst themselves.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by PresidentMarcos
I think cIV should reflect the fact that historically, most war has been between people of the same civilization fighting amongst themselves.

I would have to disagree that most wars were civil wars, as internal conflit resulting from power struggles rarely split empires - they mainly ended in a lot of Royal blood spilled.

It also depends on how you look at the civilization - from our perspective we see those wars as having been faught within a civilazation (i.e. feudal japan, china, england, etc). However, prior to those "civil" wars, there wasn't much a of a civilization - just a collection of independent duchies and city states.

War as Civ has always presented it has been the grande scale aggression we see throughout history when one group decides it wants what another group has. A civil war is more about NOT wanting what others have - to the point of conflict.

[GePap]

I agree that civil wars should come about from massive internal unhappiness, which means a change to the unhappiness model.

It would be simplest, I think, to break down the system thus:

Each city has an unhappiness factor, from 1-10, with the chance of riots in a city going up as it gets closer to 10, with 0 chance at 1 to say 90% at 10 (figured each turn). Cities of different nationalities would never go to 1, but hover around 3 or so.

A National unhappiness scale would be based on the % of cities over unhappiness 5 or so. The more such cities, the greater the national unhapiness scale. And if the sacle goes above a certain spot, a chance for a full blown rebellion occurs.

This would force one not only to paficy each city, but make sure all the cities are not simply just bellow exploding.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think unhappiness need be the determining factor; it could play a role, but social factors unrelated to happiness can cause a civil war as well.

[PresidentMarcos]

No, no. Like lots of different petty states. To build an empire, you would have to unite a group of them close to you.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by PresidentMarcos
No, no. Like lots of different petty states. To build an empire, you would have to unite a group of them close to you.

I like this idea a lot. It also came up in a thread the maximum number of civs that should be available. The idea of minor vs major civs was brought up, and I thought it would be interesting if eveyone started as a minor civ, and had to work your way up.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...0&pagenumber=2

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I don't think unhappiness need be the determining factor; it could play a role, but social factors unrelated to happiness can cause a civil war as well.

And how would you model such "social factors"?

The simplest way would be to give them an unhapiness rating of some sort, meaning if said "social factors" exists, there is underlying unhapiness with the system (wich is true) that makes it more likely to face social disturbances.

[GePap]

Originally posted by fezick31


I like this idea a lot. It also came up in a thread the maximum number of civs that should be available. The idea of minor vs major civs was brought up, and I thought it would be interesting if eveyone started as a minor civ, and had to work your way up.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...0&pagenumber=2

The notion of a minor civ is a device to increase the number of civs in the game while limiting the drain on AI powers. Any civ being played by the player would instantly function as a "major civ". The distinction is not one of size or power at any point in the game, but the ability to become a great power by having a greater set of skills that AI can use to expand, trade, conquer, and research.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by GePap


The notion of a minor civ is a device to increase the number of civs in the game while limiting the drain on AI powers. Any civ being played by the player would instantly function as a "major civ". The distinction is not one of size or power at any point in the game, but the ability to become a great power by having a greater set of skills that AI can use to expand, trade, conquer, and research.

I understand the technical needs - just misunderstood the intent in reading those posts. I still like the idea of "minor civs" as a concept though. Perhaps what we are approaching is the difference between city states and empire (and the tendancy of those city states to want to be independent from said empire; this is afterall a thread on civil wars).

What if there were two type of barbarians - standard mauraders, and minor tribes that when conquered, could be added to your empire? This could also lead to two different types of splits in civil wars - monir civs that break off, but aren't big enough to really be considered a seperate power (i.e. taiwan type nations), and others that would be full fledged civs (i.e. USA, France, Byzantium).

[conmcb25]

I like the idea of Civil Wars.

I have seen it in CIV2 and in EUII and I like the concept, and theres no reason not to have it, if you can turn it off.

[GePap]

Originally posted by fezick31


I understand the technical needs - just misunderstood the intent in reading those posts. I still like the idea of "minor civs" as a concept though. Perhaps what we are approaching is the difference between city states and empire (and the tendancy of those city states to want to be independent from said empire; this is afterall a thread on civil wars).

What if there were two type of barbarians - standard mauraders, and minor tribes that when conquered, could be added to your empire? This could also lead to two different types of splits in civil wars - monir civs that break off, but aren't big enough to really be considered a seperate power (i.e. taiwan type nations), and others that would be full fledged civs (i.e. USA, France, Byzantium).

Well, there are many ways to treat a possible civil war, including civil wars within AI empires.

Some of the ones I see that might work fine are:

1. For AI empires- empire breaks down into multiple minor civs, from 2 on (with the original civ being one but demoted to minor civ). Then the game at random picks a minor civ to become a major civ to keep the number the same- now, the game may randomly chose one of the civil war civs as the new power, or it might not.

2. an AI empire losses large sections that become independent minor civs, but automatically retain great power status for the areas left.

3. for a player empire, same as #2 for AI,

4. A human empire breaks into 2, with the other side a major civ, while another major civ in the game gets demoted to minor to keep the number of majors equal.

[fezick31]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, there are many ways to treat a possible civil war, including civil wars within AI empires.

Some of the ones I see that might work fine are:

1. For AI empires- empire breaks down into multiple minor civs, from 2 on (with the original civ being one but demoted to minor civ). Then the game at random picks a minor civ to become a major civ to keep the number the same- now, the game may randomly chose one of the civil war civs as the new power, or it might not.

2. an AI empire losses large sections that become independent minor civs, but automatically retain great power status for the areas left.

3. for a player empire, same as #2 for AI,

4. A human empire breaks into 2, with the other side a major civ, while another major civ in the game gets demoted to minor to keep the number of majors equal.

These are good ideas, but they operate on the assumption that the status quo must be maintained for the game. If the intention of minor civs is to limit the demand on the AI, perhaps the AI could be developed so that there are a couple of "empty" slots that it could still handle and be competetive. That way you could still get the twist of a new major player interacting with its mother culture without sacraficing other civs status. Otherwise, I could see civil wars just serving as a way to take powerful civs out of contention (although that would be an interesting strategy if there were ways to influence a civil war in another culture).