Civil Wars

[d_bertelli]

Clearly civil wars are much bigger deals in history than in any recent civ game (think particularly about China, the rest of Asia, Latin America, and Africa in addition to the U.S. civil war). A few ideas:

1. Should be a certain likelihood for a group of 5-20 cities to break away en masse under certain conditions (e.g., overly rapid growth under repressive government types, over-seas breakaways after the loss of a major city on a home continent).
2. Instead of, or in addition to, espionage against a particular city, you might be able to toggle an option of being willing to finance a larger revolt against an enemy at some level (GPT)
3. Recapturing civil war break-away cities should not lead to disappearance / dimunition of cultural value of old temples, or wonders etc.
4. Civilizations practicing slavery, razing cities in conquest in later epochs, or those with overly large armies should be particularly vulnerable to civil wars. Might also be more likely after a plague has swept through or a volcano has erupted (in ancient eras)
5. AI of breakaway states should be particularly amenable to giving back large numbers of cities to settle conflicts.

[POTUS]

Some good ideas here, although it would be hard to implement in the game fairly and accurately.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Great Ideas! I'd like to add the following additional thoughts, if I might, based on previous stuff I've posted about the place!

1) There should be several factors which decide if a city breaks away from it's main empire. These would be:

a) Excessive Corruption.

b) Excessive unhappiness.

c) Large No. of Foreign Nationals.

d) Distance from the Capital.

e) No. of Garrison forces in city.

f) No. of adjacant cities which have recently broken away (could give you a 'Domino Effect'!)

g) Ratio of city's Culture/ Avg. Empire Culture.

If any of these factors are met, then your domestic advisor should pop up warning you of discontent in your cities, and a possibility of civil war. The things which would actually 'SPARK' a civil war would be:

i) Loss of your Capital.

ii) Someone performing an 'Incite CW' or 'Propaganda' mission on you, through espionage.

iii) Refusing to change the government when demanded to, or changing to a government your people don't like!

iv) Excessive war weariness and/or failure to agree to peace when offered by another civ.

v) When a city goes into revolt!

vi) Major disagreements with your senate (if applicable)!

When any of these trigger event occurs, all cities in your empire are checked for a possible breakaway, with all cities that leave in a single turn all becoming a new civ (barbarians if no civ slots are left)!

In addition, there should be the religious equivalent to Civil Wars, called 'Religious Schism', if you change to a religion the people don't like (or refuse to change to one they DO like), or if you've got a lot of foreign nationals, heretics and/or religious converts in your empire (see the religion thread for more details of this )!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[joncha]

To add to the "domino effect" idea, I think another factor should be cities with citizens of the same nationality/ies (or, if implimented, religion) of the seceding cities, regardless of distance.

I think assimilation should work both ways, too. By that, I mean just as some citizens are assimilated to your culture over time, there should also be a percentage chance that new citizens be of another culture that exists in the city.

Perhaps.... the citizens from conquered civs could act as in civ3, but after the discovery of Nationalism, they could trigger a Civil War and respawn the defeated civ.

jon.