Eternal China Syndrome

[Fosse]

Every previous Civ game (and the offshoots and imitators) has suffered from the Eternal China Syndrom. Meaning that civilizations that appear in 4000 BC are the only ones to ever be found and, barring military obliteration, will all last until the launch to Alpha Centauri.

Many people have asked that steps be taken to address ECS in future Civs, on the grounds that it is historically inaccurate and presumably less exciting than playing in a world where empires can truly rise and fall.

So, should the Civs that begin the game be able (or likely) to last until the final turn? Should new nations be able to rise from the old, break off from the established, or appear in the hinterlands?

If ECS is something that you feel should be excised from Civ 4, then how should the new dynamism be handled, and how would players react to it?

[General Ludd]

Yes.


The game desperately needs to be more dynamic in this regard.

[Vince278]

The focus and goal of the game is to "Build a civilization to stand the Test of Time" as I once heard said. Thus your goal is to be the Eternal China and to trample everyone else underfoot. I tend to be a conquerer so if someone else survives up to the Alpha Centauri launch then its nobody's fault but my own ( ). I'd like to see civil wars implemented in a game but I'd hate to have the nation I worked hard on to be taken away from me for the sake of historical accuracy (which is something Civ is intentionally light on anyway).

[clarkcd]

I enjoyed the Civ II (I think) concept of having an empire split into two separate countries when you captured the capital. Sure the trigger event was kind of odd but the feature was nice.

Then again I also liked having barbarians be able to capture cities.

[Robert]

Pherhaps there could be a feature that rioting / unhappy citizen will turn into a new group of nations on the long term.

So if you don't keep your people happy in one part of your empire, they might overtrow a few cities at one point in the game.

[Wernazuma III]

I think a good idea would be to have cities which are seperated from the capital by ocean or which are isolated from other cities of the same civ by more than, say, 10 tiles are likely to split apart´after some time, forming a new civ.

[Drachasor]

Hmm, perhaps make it so that there are two or more levels of assimilation of foreigners. The first level just makes it so that they'll have standard levels of happiness and productivity, like normal citizens in your civilization. However, they will maintain their ethnic distinction, and if enough of them become unhappy, then most of them in all cities will revolt, potentially bringing back their civilization.

As for other sorts of revolutions, that could be handled via happiness too. If you have enough cities clustered together (perhaps at least 10% of your empire), and they are very unhappy for a long time, then they might revolt (e.g. American Civil War and Revolutionary War).

Naturally, if something like this might happen, you should get warned when the chance first appears, and later as well (with increasingly urgent warnings).

This would work best if revolts were quite toned down and didn't happen when they currently do. If you could have up to 100% of your citizens unhappy in a city and have no revolt, then the above system could work fairly well. For example, if you have a cluster of cities and all of them are 75% or more unhappy, then perhaps each turn after the first 5 or so there will be a 5% cumulative chance of a revolt (so after 10 more turns after the initial 5 there is a 50% they will leave your empire).

The key to any such system is to make it so that it won't happen often, and it would never happen if you took steps to avoid it. My suggestion might not be perfect, but I was trying to go for something that the player can work to control.

-Drachasor

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Wernazuma III
I think a good idea would be to have cities which are seperated from the capital by ocean or which are isolated from other cities of the same civ by more than, say, 10 tiles are likely to split apart´after some time, forming a new civ.

Sounds good except that it this could make victory by conquest nearly impossible.

[Sandman]

I suggest a long time ago that standard government changing revolutions should be bloodier. Much bloodier. Partisans would swarm about, counter-revolutionaries would sieze control of cities, units would join the other side, and your civ would be very, very vulnerable to invasion.

If you got lucky, you'd only be in chaos for a few turns, as rebellions are put down and foreigners driven back. If you were unlucky, your empire would spend hundreds of years trying to rebuild itself; like China.

Smaller civs could have revolutions more safely, whereas larger civs would suffer more badly. Players with large civs would need to be more 'conservative' in their view, keeping a monarchy long after it's passed its sell-by date, for example, since a revolution would be so destructive.

[Lambiorix_be]

Originally posted by Sandman
I suggest a long time ago that standard government changing revolutions should be bloodier. Much bloodier. Partisans would swarm about, counter-revolutionaries would sieze control of cities, units would join the other side, and your civ would be very, very vulnerable to invasion.

I am not convinced that every change of government style should be bloody and/or disruptive. Why would going from republic to democracy have to be disruptive? Only if the change goes from one 'extreme' to another should it be disruptive Ex. from democracy to communism.

On the other hand if your government is totalitarian (monarchy, despotism...) you should be vulnerable to attacks on your 'throne', to be translated by city uprisings, army units becoming 'barbarian' etc... (Why not an uprising of the workers trying to become communist )

[Odin]

Originally posted by Sandman
I suggest a long time ago that standard government changing revolutions should be bloodier. Much bloodier. Partisans would swarm about, counter-revolutionaries would sieze control of cities, units would join the other side, and your civ would be very, very vulnerable to invasion.

If you got lucky, you'd only be in chaos for a few turns, as rebellions are put down and foreigners driven back. If you were unlucky, your empire would spend hundreds of years trying to rebuild itself; like China.

Smaller civs could have revolutions more safely, whereas larger civs would suffer more badly. Players with large civs would need to be more 'conservative' in their view, keeping a monarchy long after it's passed its sell-by date, for example, since a revolution would be so destructive.

I like this. It would hurt ICS big time.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Vince278
Sounds good except that it this could make victory by conquest nearly impossible.

Personally, I wouldn't mind so much. But anyway, there'd be some centuries of course, until such "colonies" would revolt, so if one is quick enough...
Another idea would be to make colonies be likely to revolt after certain advances, like Age of Reason, Democracy, Nationalism or such.

[Fosse]

Victory by conquest should be pretty hard. Perhaps not impossible, but certainly not the snowball effect it is today.

The more countries you conquer, the harder it should be to keep your empire under your control. That way the game gets more challenging as you approach the end, not less. The modern age would sure be a lot more fun if it wasn't just waiting to pick off the last one or two nations you haven't subdued yet, don't you think?

[Fosse]

I don't know yet if I'm a fan of bloody and protracted revolutions. It seems counter-intuitive to declare a revolution (as the player) and then fight off revolutionaries (as the ruler).

That being said, the current method of imposing anarchy for a random number of turns is awful and tedious; the ideas offered so far are better than the nothing I have thought of. Something new should be devised, and the topic should probably have a thread level discussion.

[Fosse]

Victory by conquest should be pretty hard. Perhaps not impossible, but certainly not the snowball effect it is today.

The more countries you conquer, the harder it should be to keep your empire under your control. That way the game gets more challenging as you approach the end, not less. The modern age would sure be a lot more fun if it wasn't just waiting to pick off the last one or two nations you haven't subdued yet, don't you think?