Civl Wars and Breakaway Civilizations in Civ 4.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by diablovision
I think one way to manage the massive corruption would be to allow the creation of states (or regions) that are all part of the union but have a state capital that would allow for reduction in corruption; a hierarchical government if you will. In exchange for dividing your nation into two or more states, you run the risk of states breaking off and forming their own civilization, based on factors suggested.
(snip)
I think with a careful design the complexity could be kept manageable and make the game very interesting.

I like this basic idea. It would help to simulate things like the American colonies breaking off from the mother country. If a rebellion happened, you could even give the player a choice which part of the civs they wanted to play. As was said, a lot of people might not like this option, but so long as it switchable, it shouldn't bother anyone.

[Leto]

re: civil war

It seems like the vast majority of veteran civ players miss the Civ 2 civil wars. I think that they need to return in Civ 4, but they should return in a much different form.

i realize i am a lurker (bows politely) and have not posted before, but i'd like to interject here. i am a long-time civ player (since the beginning). i remember the civil wars in civ2, and i believe it was wise of firaxis to remove them as a game element. let me explain.

when you are creating a game of any sort, your first consideration must always be FUN. fun comes before realism, before detail, before anything else at all. that said, here's why i think civil wars in civ are not fun to most players.

we all know how a game of civ goes. in some games, there comes a point where you realize that you are never going to "make it" and win the game before the clock runs out. now i understand that many people play thru to the end regardless, but that's beside my point. my point is that a system that can keep the game "close" as opposed to creating blow-out scenarios, makes for a lot more fun for all. i don't know if you have played or heard of Puerto Rico, a board game by Rio Grande Games, but it is an example of a game that allows for consistently close endings that can't be called until the final points are tallied. keeping a game close means keeping players involved and fighting hard for the win.

game mechanics that make for blowout games are those that create huge power shifts, often for minor reasons or even out of pure luck. in civ3, the single most dramatic agents of change are probably (off the top of my head) either nuclear weapons (could easily be argued otherwise) or alliances, depending on how you see it. now, those powerful agents of change are okay for several reasons. (bare with me as i'm sure you can sense i am nearing my point.) nuclear weapons, although powerful, do not occur until close to the end-game, thus accelerating things properly at advances stages in play. alliances are balanced in that they are available to all players (assuming normal circumstances) and are easily dissolved. the primary reason, however, that these powerful agents of change are viable is because they are resultant of player choices and stratagems.

would any player (AI or human) ever choose to split its nation in half? under civ2 rules or those currently being discussed, of course not, because the results are disastrous. in fact, in the course of history, more often than not, successful civil wars succeeded BECAUSE the country was such a mess that after the dust settled both nations (the old and the new) were better off than before. now i realize there are exceptions, i am merely stating a generality. and if we agree on this generality, then we must agree that a civil war that destroys a player (again, AI or human) to the point that it becomes nearly impossible to catch up to other intact civs is just too big a power swing and unbalances the game.

remember, a game of civilization is basically a race, and when you are out of the running you are plain out of the running. it is a downward spiral. small civs incur more penalties than bonuses. sure, you get a better trade return on luxuries, but you also have all the larger civs extracting tribute from you or declaring war because they smell blood. when an AI player in civ2 factioned, it was always cause for celebration. why? because the two new civs were shells of their former power. it became pathetically easy to divide and conquer. in that light, civil wars among the AI are simply too upsetting to the global balance of power.

civil wars for a human player are even worse. i think somebody mentioned a chance of civil war being triggered at the discovery of certain techs. i'm sorry to disagree so bluntly, but this is a no-no. when you mix a chance-triggered "bad" feature with a necessarily "good" feature, you break the game's natural progression. for example, if discovering democracy is going to have even the slightest chance of splitting your entire civ in half, which you've spent countless hours nurturing, are you going to even want that tech? no, you are going to avoid it like the plague or just reload if you don't like the result. and that's not FUN, and it's also not realistic. you'll have players going in awkward circles around certain advances in the tech-tree, avoiding a specific gameplay element, and that's not an in-game strategy, that's working around a design flaw.

to return to civil wars happening to human players: first off, it is pretty rare that the AI has the ability to take a large civ's capital. secondly, how many people actually keep playing after their nation splits, instead of reloading or quitting altogether. i'm not asking for a poll, i'm sure that some hardcare players do, but in general it is an event (mostly outside your control) that wrecks your dozens of plans and micro-plans that you've been laying out for thousands of game-years. it's just BAD GAME MECHANICS.

now, all of that said, i will admit that civil wars do represent an important trait in mankind's history. *IF* one were going to propose the inclusion of such a trait, and that's a big if, it would have to be contigent on a few factors.

first, and i sort of got into this earlier, revolts should be a natural progression for a civilization that (while changing the global dynamic of gameplay and thereby adding interest) it still happens for a good enough reason that the resultant civs at least GAIN in some areas while losing in others.
for example: a civ spread far too thin, with a huge amount of corruption and a decentralized government could faction off from civil war into two equal sides or (more likely) into a fledgling infant-state and an amputated but still dominant parent-state. the point here is that such a change could actually HELP the parent civ in some ways, such as decreasing its corruption, the amount of territory to defend, and the number of unhappy citizens (who would have been predominantly in the more remote areas of the empire), while at the same time no doubt injuring it by removing some of its dominion. when executed this way, civil war or secession actually plays a logical, natural role of trimming down fat, overgrown civs that are unbalanced in their strategy.

this directly addresses the problem of infinite sprawl AND the rabid and too-early colonialism ever-present in the civ3 system. it also creates gameplay balance by giving some advantage to smaller civs, while not automatically handicapping any civ that simply becomes too succesful. and again, to re-emphasize: civil war then becomes an effect that stems from a natural cause, not an arbitrary trigger that ruins an otherwise healthy nation.

if carefully implemented, you could keep the good things: global shift in dynamics that comes from a new player's entry, and eliminate the bad things, mainly arbitrary power shifts that essentially flip the 'gameboard' upside down. and if you think that this is merely 'drama' or 'flavor', think practically and remember that nobody likes the guy (or the game which causes it) who flings the gameboard off the table in anger because some immediate, arbitrary, disaster struck him from the runnings while offering no advance warning nor consolation for his obliterating setback.

to conclude, when you are brainstorming all the rules and sub-rules that would make civil wars integrate properly, seriously consider whether these rules would actively add fun to the experience, or merely act as a patchwork of 'realism' features that, while possibly novel at first, would eventually distract from the core elements of the game.

comments?

Leto

[korn469]

Leto

good post I really enjoyed it, and I agree with your many of your points, the most important is that features should agument the game and not hinder it

although I think that civ3 did take steps to combat ICS that civ4 could take it to another level and civil wars/break away republics could be part of that equation

I think that the current rules work against civil wars for a number of reasons

*a good/obessive player can prevent his civ from ever having a single unhappy city
*all new cities start out as perfectly loyal subjects
*starving cities down to size to weed out ethnic populations
*only two things resist blitzkrieg campaigns in civ3, the AI military prowess, and culture flipping

in order to have civil wars happen I civ4 would need to include a few new rule changes

*All cities always have to have at least one worker that players couldn't change into specialists. That way players could completely avoid unhappiness by changing everyone into entertainers. Then if a city stays in revolt for x number of turns it either flips back to its original civ, or if it isn't an occupied city it breaks away and forms a new civ (and raises the civil war risk for surrounding cities).

*Newly founded civs should start out with colonists instead of citizens if founded more than x number of tiles away from the capital. That number would increase with technology; however until then, newly founded cities would consist of colonists. Colonists wouldn't produce normal culture, instead they would produce a colonist type of culture that would work like other civs culture. The higher it gets the more likely these cities would break away. Eventually the core cities (or other civs) would absorb these colonist cities if they didn't break away.

*Starving cities should have double unhappiness and an increased chance of revolting and breaking away. Coupling that with the one worker rule would prevent players from engaging in the civ3 version of ethic cleansing, and make conquests slightly more dangerous. Especially if every time a city breaks away (either flipped back to its original civ or became a new civ) that the risk of surrounding cities doing the same would double.

*Blitzkriegs in the mid to late game usually allow players to absorb AIs very quickly, so quickly that AI defenders or culture flipping isn't able to stop it. Simply make it harder to absorb conquered civs, and make it much more likely they would reemerge through civil wars. Two rules could make this happen, any time an occupied city doesn't have military units in it, it automatically breaks away, and occupied cities have a much higher risks of breaking away.

I think these rules and very few others are all that's needed to implement civil wars in civ4.

[Wycoff]

Re: re: civil war

Originally posted by Leto

first, and i sort of got into this earlier, revolts should be a natural progression for a civilization that (while changing the global dynamic of gameplay and thereby adding interest) it still happens for a good enough reason that the resultant civs at least GAIN in some areas while losing in others.
for example: a civ spread far too thin, with a huge amount of corruption and a decentralized government could faction off from civil war into two equal sides or (more likely) into a fledgling infant-state and an amputated but still dominant parent-state. the point here is that such a change could actually HELP the parent civ in some ways, such as decreasing its corruption, the amount of territory to defend, and the number of unhappy citizens (who would have been predominantly in the more remote areas of the empire), while at the same time no doubt injuring it by removing some of its dominion. when executed this way, civil war or secession actually plays a logical, natural role of trimming down fat, overgrown civs that are unbalanced in their strategy.

That is basically what would happen under my proposed civil war/secession scheme. As I have said, a region couldn't break away unless it was in disorder, and would have to be in disorder for multiple turns. As Mr. Fun pointed out, its relatively easy in most circumstances to bring a city out of disorder in one turn. I realize that. Under my structure, for a civil war to occur the city that breaks away needs ot be one that is so unhappy that it remains in disorder for a few turns and that the creation of entertainers can't solve the disorder. One example would be a city made unhappy due to extreme war weariness. Basically, instead of a chonically rebellious city having mobs that destroys city improvements, you have a region that is fed up with a government and yearning for independence.

As for benefitting the mother civ, if a region breaks away the corruption levels of the parent region would drop by default. Corruption is based on a large extent on the number of cities in your empire. If a chunk of 5 or 6 cities breaks off of your periphery, the rest of the empire's corruption levels would naturally decrease, especially if you were using a communal corruption government.

this directly addresses the problem of infinite sprawl AND the rabid and too-early colonialism ever-present in the civ3 system. it also creates gameplay balance by giving some advantage to smaller civs, while not automatically handicapping any civ that simply becomes too succesful. and again, to re-emphasize: civil war then becomes an effect that stems from a natural cause, not an arbitrary trigger that ruins an otherwise healthy nation.

I agree with this reasoning 100%, and I think that my system reflects this. My system abandons the nonsensical Civ 2 empire split at capital capture, and replaces it with a more rational, realistic split along the lines of your suggestions.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by korn469


I think that the current rules work against civil wars for a number of reasons

*a good/obessive player can prevent his civ from ever having a single unhappy city
*all new cities start out as perfectly loyal subjects
*starving cities down to size to weed out ethnic populations...

*All cities always have to have at least one worker that players couldn't change into specialists. That way players could completely avoid unhappiness by changing everyone into entertainers. Then if a city stays in revolt for x number of turns it either flips back to its original civ, or if it isn't an occupied city it breaks away and forms a new civ (and raises the civil war risk for surrounding cities).

I think that you should be able to have as many specialists as you want. However, they should make each entertainer progressively less effective than the last. That way you can still starve your cities if you want to, but you can't keep your city artificially happy by having 80% of the city be entertainers.

*Starving cities should have double unhappiness and an increased chance of revolting and breaking away. Coupling that with the one worker rule would prevent players from engaging in the civ3 version of ethic cleansing, and make conquests slightly more dangerous. Especially if every time a city breaks away (either flipped back to its original civ or became a new civ) that the risk of surrounding cities doing the same would double.

I agree that there should be extra unhappyness for starvation, but I think that you should still have the ethnic cleansing option. It may not be pretty, but it is realistic. Maybe there should be an ethnic cleansing option. That way, the game city targets that minority and only starves them out, but the game recognizes that you are deliberately ethnic cleansing. Selecting ethnic cleansing would create extra unhappyness, and the levels would vary depending on which government you are in. That way you can't fool the game with ethnic cleansing. It knows what you're doing and punishes you for it, unlike the ignorant Civ 3 AI. Keeping a minimum number of citizens who must remain citizens would eliminate the "ignorant" ethnic cleansing. That way you can choose the low road if necessary, but take your punishment, which would be the greater chance of revolt.

*Blitzkriegs in the mid to late game usually allow players to absorb AIs very quickly, so quickly that AI defenders or culture flipping isn't able to stop it. Simply make it harder to absorb conquered civs, and make it much more likely they would reemerge through civil wars. Two rules could make this happen, any time an occupied city doesn't have military units in it, it automatically breaks away, and occupied cities have a much higher risks of breaking away.

Those are pretty good ideas.

[Fosse]

These posts are all full of really good ideas so far, but I think my favorite new wrinkle to the whole thing (new to me anyway, I've been away for a while) is that cities founded too far from the capital get "Colonists" instead of "citizens."

These colonies could then have a different set of rules that bind them together based on geography (so you could have several sets of related colonies), and create a possibility of schisming with the original country. Lots of models could be created based on this simple rule, for revolts, for absorption, for defections.

That's easy, simple to understand, and doesn't have weird logical flaws (like systems in which any city on a different "continent" is a colony). Good work to you!

[Ang]

Oh god, hell no. It's interesting for a civil war to happen, but for the love of god there has to be an option where I can turn it off.

[Krushchev]

I like the idea of a "turn off" option for players. I'd like to be able to turn civil wars off at the start of a game if I so choose, but I'd also like to be able to turn it on.

Another idea as far as making civil wars/secession likely would be to add a bonus/penalty (depending on your point of view) for a significant body of water or significant amount of enemy-held land being between your capitol and the city up for secession. This is one thing that contributed to colonial secessions...the presence of the Atlantic Ocean in the new world, and the distance overland in Asia and Africa. Simply say if the # of land tiles exceeds, say, 10 or the number of sea tiles exceeds 8 (or some other set of numbers), then that acts as a factor. The thing is, this isn't just a distance issue...it's also an issue of being able to control the place in question.

Another version of this might be adding a penalty for not being able to trace a land or sea line to the city in question, though these cases would be much more unusual (either landlocked cities or cities on inland seas), and might make this one not worth the coding involved.

[Mark_Everson]

Originally posted by Krushchev
Another idea as far as making civil wars/secession likely would be to add a bonus/penalty (depending on your point of view) for a significant body of water or significant amount of enemy-held land being between your capitol and the city up for secession.

Yeah, that is very relevant. However the penalty should also change with technology as better communications and transport make interactions easier. This is both the pleasant sort of interactions, and also the end-of-a-gun kind!

[Sava]

I like the idea of civil wars.

[OliverFA]

The concept of Civil Wars is great but it, as many other concepts, must be kept simple. Designers should find a middle point between the too simple (and difficult to happen) "civil war only if capital is conquered" and a system in which we have to pay attention to each and every single city each turn just to make sure that it doesn´t split from our empire. Remember, the main point of any feature is to provide fun. Civil wars could be a very funny feature, but only if well designed.

[trev]

CIVIL WARS ARE NOT FUN. DO NOT HAVE THEM. Culture flips can be extremely annoying, any idea that involves losing multiple cities simultaneously would be far worse.
Also the breakway civ would be easy pickings for another nearby civ and therefore would alter the power ratings of all civs too drastically

[Brent]

I'm surprised to say, but I don't mind the possibility of civil wars. Flipping is not so good (unless it's in my favor) because it's not so interesting. When I play, flipping is usually in my favor, so maybe I don't mind afterall, but if the tables were turned, that would be no good. But having a civil war and having a new civ break off from mine would be worth it. I just like the concept of having a civ in the game representing the Confederacy, or having a civ based on a region that was never independant in the real world, or a completely ficticious civ, or just bringing in an established civ just for a change midgame, or having a specific Norwegian civ when they are normally just part of the Vikings. I like the idea of having someone new to trade with, especially if I get bored with the settings I chose or if the number of civs had been reduced, and having a new partner in diplomacy, or the sudden effectiveness of the Great Library. I actually don't mind having balance of power shift, especially if the civil war is in another civ and I'm still as dominant or more so.

[Robert]

civil-wars start 99% of the time between two etnic groups. Thus, I am the dutch, I conquer germany (mostly other way around, but hey, it's just an example)

After 600 years all the german cities in my empire could feel dissatisfied because of certain decisions the governament has made, and splits up from my great dutch empire.

That's the only way a civil war should happen.
keep your minorities happy.

[Adagio]

/me jumps into the thread without reading any of the posts

Civil wars would be great to have in Civ4, but it might be a bit diffecult to get into the game while making it realistic...
Just make civil wars kinda like in Civ2, where when the capital is taken the rest of the civilization goes into an unrest for a few turns, and if the player doesn't manage to make all cities happy again (entertainers shouldn't help in this case) the civilization splits in two...