Using events to justify wars?

[Scooby_Doo]

Hello,

I've been browsing this forum for ages but never really posted here. I have an idea though and I don't think it's covered by the events that are currently in the game and I was wondering if my ideas are something that could be modded in.

I tend to play a fairly peaceful game, perhaps having a single war with a neighbour, and it struck me the other day that, although each Civ does have it's own flavour, they're all fairly generic in the sense that an 'evil' Civ never develops, every Civ is fairly OK really. I was thinking that the event system from BtS could be used to create context-sensitive events based on the idea that your population have taken a strong dislike to an 'evil' Civ and want you to declare war on them. I had a few ideas for this, such as:

An event which had a chance of triggering against any Civ which uses the slavery civic (but only if the player isn't using it too) basically with a pop up saying "your people are appalled at Civ X's use of slavery and want you to take a stand. Either use diplomacy to force them to abandon slavery or declare war within 10 turns. If you don't X unhappiness for Y turns". (It's just an idea, but you get the flavour).

I also thought this could be used with any Civ that employs police state, and probably other oppressive civics.

On a similar note, I was thinking that religious crusades could be an event. The event, which would be more like a quest, would trigger if the player has a state religion and would be against a Civ with a different state religion. It could be something like capturing the capital, or perhaps a number of cities.

As a player that doesn't usually declare war for the sake of it, I think that events like these could really help to give some backstory to a conflict and would spice things up. I know nothing about modding though, or even if these events are currently in the game (I've never seen them), so could it be done?

Thanks.

[Fleme]

There are a few events like this. One is where you are tasked to capture the holy city of your religion that is controlled by the enemy, who possibly has a different faith. (not entirely sure) Other one is where you are tasked to capture a strategic resource controlled by your enemy and you possess none.

I suppose it'd add a bit of flavor if you could declare wars on those who run Slavery, especially when you yourself are running Emancipation or on a Police State, when you run Representation or Universal Suffrage. Thumbs up on the idea.

[Scooby_Doo]

Ah, yes, I remember the Holy City quest now. I don't think that there's anything like the civics-based events that I mentioned though. I think they would be particularly good as they would make civics choices even more important and would really help to differentiate Civs, if an AI adopts police state for example it would help to suggest that they've turned into an evil dictatorship rather than that they're just getting quicker military unit production. I imagine that events based on civics would really help to add extra depth to each Civ.

[MoonWolf]

Well, you get a negative score against civs with a different religion and different civics than you. And the more negative score, the higher possibility it is for war. There are also some events (like marriage, faux pas etc) that cause a diplomatic score, either + or -.

Now, what I really would like, is an option in the diplo screen for demanding stop spying. And if a spy is captured, it could trigger war, esecially if they were captured during water poisoning (and cause a diplo hit among the other civs or you don't a penalty for declaring war).

[jkp1187]

(WARNING: EVENT SPOILERS IN THIS POST)

The "Wedding Feud" event and Solver's "Spy Discovered" event also creates a possibility of war with another player.

The "Futbol War" event from my own event modpack also does this: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=172591

I do like the idea of a civics change causing a war. I don't think it should be delayed, though -- it's usually better (in my opinion) for Random Events that have major effects to happen immediately. Otherwise, a player might play 10 really labor-intensive turns, forget about the event, then be rudely shocked when he learns that he's now at war.

This is a good enough idea that I might try scripting something for it...unfortunately, I'm not going to have any time to do such things until after the holidays.

Obviously there's the Hereditary Rule vs. Universal Suffrage conflict. (I don't count 'Representation' as it might encompass less than one-man/one-vote governments, such as the Roman Senate.) Police State vs. Universal Suffrage. Slavery vs. Emancipation. Free Market vs. State Property. Environmentalism vs. everybody.


Once the event is triggered, the event might go something like this:

Prerequisites naturally being that affected civ A be running the "bad" civic, affected civ B be running the "good" civic, and that civ A can switch to the "good" civic



*Civ B* says that our use of *bad civic* makes our government illegitimate and demands that we immediately switch to *good civic* or risk war!


1.) Switch to *good civic* immediately. (Civic switch, gain diplomatic bonus with Civ B)
2.) Offer a bribe of gold (or maybe technology), but chance of event recurring.
3.) Refuse this message and prepare for war! (Civ B declares war on Civ A)

[Supr49er]

Originally posted by jkp1187
... The "Wedding Feud" event and Solver's "Spy Discovered" event also creates a possibility of war with another player

The "Wedding Feud" will always trigger a war in my games, if I select the third option to really anger my oponnent. They will immediately declare war, regardless of how strong my military is!

[Scooby_Doo]

jkp1187, I would certainly be interested to see if civics-based events would work. Also, you've flipped my original idea round so that it's the 'good' civ pressurising the player to switch. I think that's an interesting idea, mine was that the player would be the good civ and would be pressured by his people to use diplomacy or war to deal with an evil civ, with a happiness penalty if the player did nothing.

Out of interest, would it be possible to create an event which recognises if the player has used diplomacy to achieve the goal? I was thinking that the happiness penalty could be avoided either by going to war with the other civ or by getting them to change civics in the diplomacy screen. I don't know if this is too complex for the events system to recognise though?

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by Scooby_Doo
jkp1187, I would certainly be interested to see if civics-based events would work.

Try my EVENTS mod here: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...hreadid=172591 The random events "Crossing the Rubicon", "Carnation Revolution", and "The Generals Putsch" all involve a possible civics switch w/anarchy as one of the outcomes for the random event.

Also, you've flipped my original idea round so that it's the 'good' civ pressurising the player to switch. I think that's an interesting idea, mine was that the player would be the good civ and would be pressured by his people to use diplomacy or war to deal with an evil civ, with a happiness penalty if the player did nothing.

"Good" and "bad" are relative terms here -- you could script an event either way, I had just thought of the above as a possible event.

Out of interest, would it be possible to create an event which recognises if the player has used diplomacy to achieve the goal? I was thinking that the happiness penalty could be avoided either by going to war with the other civ or by getting them to change civics in the diplomacy screen. I don't know if this is too complex for the events system to recognise though?

If you just mean that a random event would take into account whether or not the player chose the 'diplomatic' option presented to him in the random event popup, then yes that absolutely can be done. Is this what you meant?

Just so you know, the random events system can tackle some basic things in the XML file. (Give free unit(s) to civ, give buildings some new bonuses, give diplomatic bonuses and penalties, give happiness bonus and penalties.) Some more complex stuff can be done via python scripting (civics switch, anarchy, give free oil resource,) but even then, there is still a limit to what can be done.

This thread by Solver (on, as they say, another forum) gives a good intro to event modding: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=230567

[Scooby_Doo]

What I meant with the diplomacy point was whether the event could give the player a certain number of turns to act and, in those turns, if the player entered the diplomacy screen with the Civ in question and got them to adopt a different civic (I think it's usually the option above converting to the player's religion), would that be recognised as a diplomatic solution to the problem (the other solution of course being to declare war within that certain number of turns)?

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at Solver's guide and perhaps see if I can tackle this idea myself.

[LzPrst]

no "evil" civs. you're right about that. Montezuma, Shaka and Genghiz are DIABOLIC!!

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by Scooby_Doo
What I meant with the diplomacy point was whether the event could give the player a certain number of turns to act and, in those turns, if the player entered the diplomacy screen with the Civ in question and got them to adopt a different civic (I think it's usually the option above converting to the player's religion), would that be recognised as a diplomatic solution to the problem (the other solution of course being to declare war within that certain number of turns)?

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look at Solver's guide and perhaps see if I can tackle this idea myself.

I can say with some degree of certainty that the Events system, as it is, couldn't handle the event you described as above -- in other words, detecting if the Civ 1 entered the diplomacy screen and bribed Civ 2 into adopting Civic Y. If it's at all possible, I'm guessing you'd have to go into the SDK, and it probably would take more effort than it would be worth to get the AI to make the event work properly.

Using Python, it PROBABLY could be scripted so that if Civ 2 adopts Civic Y within, say, 10 turns of EVENT_AA then EVENT_BB is triggered, but it would take some coding elbow grease. And it wouldn't quite capture what you wanted to do (because if Civ 2 adopted the Civic on its own accord, without Civ 1 doing anything, Civ 1 would kind of get a freebie.)

It would be far easier to script an event so that the bribe is part of the event choices--so Player 1 gets the choices:

(1) Go to war with Civ 2 immediately.
(2) Bribe Civ 2 into adopting with and/or (if chosen, Civ 2 immediately adopts )

Better question, though, is: what gameplay effect would this have? Is there really an incentive for the player that gets this event to WANT to do either of these things? Usually events are either:

(1) A free bonus (new resource, free promotion for units, relationship bonuses with AIs, free tech)
(2) A minor negative event (building destroyed, city in unrest, relationship penalty with AIs, lose research for tech)
(3) An event choice in which a variety of bonuses/penalties are offered (pay $30 or lose the theatre; pay $50 or lose all the granary food; pay $20 and get a free promotion for your units, or pay nothing and get nothing).
(4) A quest in which certain tasks must be performed to

In this particular event, the human player probably could care less what civics an AI is running....it may not be 'fun' to be forced to care....know what I mean?

Just some random thoughts -- certainly, don't let me discourage you from running with your ideas. It's just that I've found that, for some events, balancing them so that they make sense in game sometimes takes a little more time than actually scripting them in XML/Python.

[mrp]

I'll never get that quest cause I always jump on religion right out of the gate. It would be cool though if so the religions had an opposed religion Christianity and Islamic
then you had a religious war quest

[joncnunn]

On the "Holy City" quest, that only gets trigured if your already at war with the civ that owns the Holy City of your state religion.

Now the using a quest to justify a war occurs most obviously with "Greed" where your generals crave a specific tile contining a resource you do not have that is in someone else's hands.
Holy Mountain" often falls into this same category and if you have few costal cities, "Master Harbor" will as well.

[Scooby_Doo]

Originally posted by jkp1187

Better question, though, is: what gameplay effect would this have? Is there really an incentive for the player that gets this event to WANT to do either of these things?

In this particular event, the human player probably could care less what civics an AI is running....it may not be 'fun' to be forced to care....know what I mean?

Well, my original idea was that the quest would be written as if it was coming from your citizens, you would be the good civ and be under pressure from your citizens to do something about a bad Civ. Therefore, the incentive to act could be something like a number of turns of unhappiness if you do nothing but, say, a one off payment of gold if you declare war (off the top of my head it would be a war chest raised by your grateful citizens) or extra happiness.

The main point with such an event though would be to add some real flavour to other Civ's civics choices (that was an apostrophe nightmare!). I don't really get the impression when a Civ adopts, for example, police state that they've become an oppressive Stalin-esque authority, there isn't any real consequences of choosing such a civic that in real life would have profound diplomatic consequences.

I think that this would help to move the Civs away from being fairly generic in terms of their attitude towards each other and would base diplomacy on what each Civ is actually like, what its doing rather than whether you've traded with them etc. My thought was simply to elevate civics choices to something approaching the diplomatic importance of religion, which in my view is one of the most fun parts of the game precisely because it has diplomatic consequences.

I also think that, for players like myself who never really use war too much, such an event would give an interesting backstory to a war and would help to encourage tension and conflict in the game.

Of course I realise that using the events system in the way that I've described wouldn't be the ideal way to implement such an idea but I can't think of a better way at the moment.

LzPrst, your post really makes my point absolutely. In the game it really makes no difference if Shaka, for example, is running police state, slavery and whatever else or is using free religion, environmentalism and what have you. The Civ itself is always the same in pretty much every game, the civics choice really has no impact but of course in the real world it would have a huge impact.

[jkp1187]

I don't completely agree with your last point, though. There can be consequences to choosing a favored civic, or declining an AI's request to switch to that favored civic in the game as it is. No it's not huge...then again, going from friendly to pleased with Napoleon or Monty might make the difference between a peaceful border and an all-out war, so the bonus from choosing their 'favorite civic' can be huge.

And not to diverge from the original point of the thread too much, but while "The West" may have had poor relations with a Stalinesque police state in the Soviet Union, at the same time, it had considerably better relations with police states in (say) Spain or Portugal....the actions and attitudes of the leaders there made all the difference.

If you're thinking of making it a QUEST, however, maybe it could go something like this:

Pre-req: Universal Suffrage, Mass Media, less than 1/2 other governments using Universal Suffrage.

Our citizens demand that we use our diplomatic and military power to spread the blessings of Universal Suffrage to other Civilizations! If, by hook or by crook, we can convince or force at least [DEFAULT # of CIVS FOR THAT MAP SIZE +1 / 2 -- so Standard = (7+1) / 2 = 4] to use Universal Suffrage, the people will reward us!


Rewards:

1.) Trigger an immediate golden age.
2.) +1 happiness in all cities.
3.) +5 commerce from all customs houses.


The quest model might be better -- that way, the player is given an incentive to care about other civs' civics -- -- but at the same time, if he has more pressing priorities, the player can choose to opt out.

We should be able to put a time limit (e.g., must be achieved in 20 turns, something like that) if you wanted to increase tension or whatever. Or it could become obsolete with another tech.

Of course, this means that civs who happen to be running that civic (I chose U/S, but it could be anything,) would be counted toward the total even if they choose the civic without the player's intervention. I think that's okay, though, especially if a time limit is used. It really depends on the other leaders in the game how successful the player might be at this quest. If they all have a favored civic that's not U/S and are already running that favored civic, it will be harder to achieve....