Idea on city allegiance

[Sore Loser]

I'd like the notion of allegiance to be introduced in Civ IV. Either in the form of a system where a city is either Capital, Core, Vassal, Tributary or Independent, or a more complex system along the lines of what MOO3 failed to do. The last one is probably not going to take off the ground, so I'll concentrate on the first one.

A Core city is controlled fully by you, a vassal city is controlled partly and a tributary city merely pays taxes. Allegiance is not easy to change, and will depend on things like culture and religion (if implemented), and general happiness of the population. A city that is heavily pillaged or experiences disasters that are handled poorly may fall down.

This is all very loose and very unclear. I have lots more in my head, but it is blocked by all the phlegm that is lodged there as well due to being sick with the flu for the fifth day in a row So please comment, if only to cheer me up a little...

[Nikolai]

You mean like the early Roman Empire? Interesting!

[Optimizer]

Maybe you could smooth out the concept of centralization, so that each city has a percental "rate of allegiance". Your capital would have 100%, core cities would have around 80% if you have a centralized nation, or around 50% if you have a city-state, feudal or federal nation. Vassal and tributary cities would have even less. A high percentage would increase the tax income, but also decrease happiness. You should be able to change this rate upwards and downwards.

[Frozzy]

Very cool idea

[Nikolai]

A thing that is important to note, is that this requires a very good diplomatic model. I don't know how good you know the Roman Empire's emergance as a great power, but it was to a great extent by diplomacy; allies, vassals, parts of empire with or without citizen rights, divide and conquer etc. I think a good diplomatic model will be extremely important for this idea to work, but I think it can.

[Sore Loser]

Yes, I was thinking along the lines of the Roman Empire and the Greek city states with this.

I'm not sure if it should be done with percentages or a rank system. I think players can more easily relate to a classification than a number, although there should probably be an underlying number governing the classification system.

How to make this work and what to use it for depends on so many other aspects of the game. Ideally, each city beyond your capitol should have a leader that you govern through indirectly, as MOO3 first aimed at. The problems with that are endless, and it won't be very Civ-like, assuming Civ-like means good gameplay with highly abstracted reality.

Optimizer, if you change it to something you can control and tinker around with for best values, then I think it loses its charm. The idea is that it should be difficult to retain control of your empire, and that progress shouldn't be something God-given that happens every round. There should be the opportunity for setbacks as well, and not only those caused by your enemies. Ideally they should all pledge full allegiance to you, but that will be extremely difficult to attain.