Revolts, Independences and Civil Wars

[Spiffor]

Well, I have posted this in the Civ3 general forum, but I think it belongs to here as well. Please let me know what you think of this

Every now and then, we on Apolyton ask Firaxis to implement revolts and independence wars or civil wars. Many people want these revolts for improved realism, or to crush the enemy more easily (Civil wars à la Civilization 2).

But from a gameplay perspective, why would Civil wars be fun ? What would they really bring to the game ?

1. The counterweight to expansion: shrink
I think the main answer to that question is that Civil wars would bring huge dynamism to the game. Actually, they'd bring the missing half of the historical dynamics to the game:

Civilization games all challenge you to stand the test of time. While this sound incredibly difficult at first (only China managed to do that in the real world), it happens to be really easy in the game. Except if the player tries to conquer the whole world, most civilizations will have stood the test of time by the end of the game, while a few would have been eliminated.

Why is that ? Because the only possible dynamics for a Civilization is to expand. In the early game, a Cvilization will grab as much unsettled territory as possible, and in the later game, it will try to conquer another territory. A successful conqueror will be stronger and stronger as he acquires more cities and more productive centers ; in the long run has nearly no chance to fall. On the other hand, a Civilization lucky enough not to get involved in wars will always stand the test of time.

In short, most of the Challenge in Civilization games is to "win". "Not to fall" is not a challenge per se, except if you have bad luck.

And this kind of challenge is exactly what would be brought by Civil wars.
To some extent, Firaxis already took steps to avoid expansion as being the obvious choice. The high corruption and cultural conversions in Civilization 3 make sure the conqueror must be cautious, and should avoid overstretching his empire. This is completely different from Civilization 2, where a city was fully productive after the conquest (no corruption, no risk of conversion), and where a conqueror would become exponentially stronger.
But these steps do not adress the core of the problem, that is that a expanding Civilization is about sure to be permanently stronger after the expansion than before. They only affect Civilizations marginally.

Civil Wars are the real way to have Civilizations shrink despite being at peace with foreigners. They could prune huge empires into smaller ones, and ease their elimination in case of foreign war. They would really bring in the challenge in "standing the test of time".

2. Creative destruction: the emergence of new Civilizations during the game
From a historical perspective, there is a fundamental flaw in every Civilization game. That is to have all Civilizations start at the same time, and let them be eliminated as the game progresses. The rival Civs remember your past deals with them and offenses to them.
Civil wars can add new Civilizations midgame, if the rebels are indeed a new Civilization. The emergence of new Civilizations would be refreshing for the game and, I think, fun. It would add some surprise, and hence some extra excitement. And we all want a game to be exciting right ?

Civil Wars may also do a great case to integrate more Civilizations, both very ancient and very modern. As such, the presence of an Italian Civilization would not be absurd despite the presence of Rome already.

I think these two reasons are why Civil wars, Independence wars and rebellions should be in Civilization games. I look forwards to see them one day

[Kuciwalker]

great ideas. If only civ3 could have "minor civs" like in Galciv.

[Frozzy]

CtP had revolts.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Frozzy
CtP had revolts.

Well, I remember the AI revolts of CTP 1 (never played CTP2, but I was told revolts as I describe them existed there), and I think that's a great idea. Were they a key mechanics of the game, or sis they just happen sometimes, without playing a definitive role in the wane of civilizations ?

[geeslaka]

In Freeciv, there are civil wars caused by loss of your capital city. However, they can not happen unless you are at war with someone or you fail to guard against barbarians. I agree, it would be interesting to have factions in your empire that split off if they become unhappy.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by geeslaka
I agree, it would be interesting to have factions in your empire that split off if they become unhappy.

Civ3's culture system (which, I insist, is great addition to the Civ concept) offers even more potential than just having your "unhappy" cities going revolt. It'd allow your "uncultured" cities to feel they don't have ties with your government.

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Well, I remember the AI revolts of CTP 1 (never played CTP2, but I was told revolts as I describe them existed there), and I think that's a great idea. Were they a key mechanics of the game, or sis they just happen sometimes, without playing a definitive role in the wane of civilizations ?

Often it was the larger cities that revolted. All the units inside were converted, so it was tough to take them back without nuking it

[Mr. President]

Some things could increase the chance of revolt in Call to Power, like the AI Entity project and some slavery / abolition dynamics (I forget exactly how it works, as I haven't played the game for a while).

In general, I think the idea of civil wars is an excellent one.

[Inverse Icarus]

with my highly advanced political/social/economic/geographical/happiness system based on region to region, different regions within the same empire would slowly evolve, possibly in different directions.

for example, take an ancient greece type map. two regions, call them sparta and athens, and give them their historical linkage. the mountains between the cities would prevent much intermingling of their cultures, and each would evolve based on many things (a major one being the builds of the region).

as time progressed, the spartan builds et al would make the people in the region more militiristic, and would lead to certain social changes. athens would do the same in a more scholarly way, etc etc.

when a region has developed a "culture" (a collection of unique slider values) it would be compared to others in the empire, and it could opt to revolt if it was radically different.

this would mean, of course, that you couldn't have extremely different regions, meaning you cant have 5 "warmonger" regions and hope to keep that 1 "scientific" region, unless you station enough troops to hold down the rebels.

could be quite interesting, but "radically different" is highly subjective, as it should be. warmongers still need science

[LDiCesare]

Were they a key mechanics of the game, or sis they just happen sometimes, without playing a definitive role in the wane of civilizations ?

They were a bit marginal, because only one city would revolt at a time most of the time. Though I've recently played a game (CtP2, moc Call to Conquest) where the Native Americans took over the French, and then their empire was too big for them, which resulted in several cities becoming independant. About one per turn for 6 turns. Then those cities fought or took over one another, and they kept revolting and creating another civ. The result was they kept revolting and spawning new civs, taking one another down, because the cities were too big and the ai unable to put 10 entertainers in them in order to avoid their revolting.

Civil wars would be good, if they were challenging, like the American civil war where a sizable chunk of the country revolts.

The talking of the capital causing civil war is a civ (1) feature, which never caused much problem to the player since it is fairly easy to prevent.

Galciv has a nice feature: If a system has low enough morale, it revolts and joins the Independant League. Plus cultural flipping. There is also a random event where fundamentalists take over many evil civs' systems.

[The diplomat]

I suggest there could be 2 kinds of unrest.
1) Social unrest which would represent when the people's needs are not being met.

Social unrest would be caused by things like famine, disease, city under attack that lacks a city wall, overpopulation etc...

The player should have to juggle the desires for expansion with the needs of the people.

Conversely, when you meet the needs of the people, like high food surplus, no disease etc... then unrest would go down which could produce WLTKD if unrest goes low enough.

2) Political unrest which would represent how your people feel about political or social beliefs.

Political unrest would be caused when you do something contrary to your cultural traits. For example, making peace if another civ, when you are militaristic.

Conversely, if you do act in sync with your cultural traits, you would get reduced unrest, which could trigger WLTKD if unrest is low enough. For example, declaring war if you are militaristic would reduce unrest.

I also think that the two main ways of controlling unrest should be either through force (military units as police, martial law) or peacefully by dealing with the causes of the unrest. The civ option of converting a citizen into an entertainment citizens in probably a bit overpowered IMHO.

Unrest could come in 4 stages:
-no or almost no unrest. WLTKD bonuses.
-low unrest. warning but no penalties.
-medium unrest. small production penalty.
-strong unrest. large production penalty plus chance of random city improvement getting
destroyed.
-severe unrest. city becomes rebel city taking some units with it as rebel units.

If a city does revolt and become a rebel city, nearby cities should get small increase in
unrest based on distance, to represent spread of rebellion.

If more than X cities rebel, they would declare themselves an independant state. nearby
cities would get a medium increase in unrest based on distance, to represent effect of
secession. Your civ would be considered in civil war. The increase in unrest to nearby
cities would end when the civil war ends (either by retaking rebel cities or by signing peace
with them).

[Panag]

hi ,

an other great spiffor idea

lets hope we shall see this again in CIV IV , .....

have a nice day

[Optimizer]

I think that nationality should play a greater role in future Civ games. A few points:

* Assimilation would be much slower, or would just happen if the population were very happy. For instance the people of India felt nationalistic in 1947, though none of them had experienced an independent India during heir lifetime.

* Citizens far away from the capital would develop their own nationality - for instance USA.

* Foreign citizens would cause more corruption and maybe unhappiness.

* The combination of foreign citizens, corrruption and unhappiness would transform citizens into resisters.

* Resisting citizens could leave their city and be transformed to partisan units.

[Inverse Icarus]

it's all relative op. the england - us differences emerged because the only real trade between them was raw goods for finished goods (ie, the imperial system @ it's height). the fact that no real ideas, and not many people, were exchanged between them, coupled with the fact that the americans felt repressed by the english crown, led to their seperatist ways.

if the english had kept a constant flow of people migrating between them and the US, it might have been different.

that, and equal rights, of course.

basically, if you divide the map into regioins (ie, an area of the map with an influence), each would develop a "culture" based on a lot fo things. if people migrated between areas, the cultures would be more homogenous.

[Dale]

What happens when a new city springs up in the mingling of the two culture influences from other cities? Be good if (at random) a selection of characteristics from both cultures would permeate into the new cities culture.