Violent Revolutions

[Sandman]

Are revolutions still going to work in the same way as civ 1 and 2?

I always thought that they were too easy. A few turns of anarchy was a small price to pay for a more efficient system of government. The revolution left your civ relatively unscarred.

I want counter-revolutionaries seizing control of some of my empires cities and forcing a long civil war. The player is forced to make a genuine decision between an inferior system of government or a long drawn out conflict which could doom their civilisation. Smaller empires will of course have an easier time with revolutions, providing a antidote to 'the strong get even stronger' problem.

If you wanted to change back to say, monarchy, after trying a republic, then the counter-revolutionaries will automatically revert back to your control.

If you wished to end the conflict, you could negotiate a truce and the counter-revolutionaries would turn into a mini-civ, probably to be eventually absorbed by your culture.

Finally, when your government changes, alliances and other pacts would have to be renegotiated and you could ditch alliances without diplomatic penalties.

Not much has been said about revolutions so far, so maybe, just maybe, firaxis have put in a more elaborate system (fingers crossed).

[Provost Harrison]

Nah, this is a game, and revolution is the method you undertake to change government...I don't think it should be any worse than anarchy for a brief spell...

[monkspider]

That would be a great idea sandman, perhaps a highly skilled mod-maker can one day implement something similar to this. A system along these lines would do well to help implement a feeling of "Rise and fall of empires" in the game. Which is something i have been so desperate for.

[jsw363]

I always thought that revolutions were a bit unrealistic too, but with civil disorder doesn't that make up for the unhappiness in the civil war? It would be really cool if there were more severe reprocussions to a government switch, but I'd like to focus on killing my enemy and not my own people in a civil war. A rival faction or two within your own empire would spice things up a bit.

[General Ludd]

I like the idea, even if it where something as simple as slaping down some barbarian partisans around your larger cities I think it would add alot.

Remember that the Religon bonus ellimantes anarchy between goverments, so there may need to be some tweaking to even things out, aswell.

[Skanky Burns]

Nice idea, Sandman

Perhaps instead of some out-lying cities reverting to counter-revolutionary control, you could have in all your cities (depending upon its cultural value) a certain number of population becomming "unassimilated" people... unproductive and disruptive, like when you conquer another civilization's cities. This would cause small problems for small civs, and bigger problems for bigger civs, which we all like

[gremalkin]

Great idea! Could go a long way toward making huge civs not such a winning prospect.

[Alfonsus72]

Good idea. I totally agree. It´s the kind of ideas we´ve been posting in the wish list the last couples of years, but I´m afraid firaxis won´t go this way, cause they want a game friendly to play to anyone, specially to "age of empires" and such games aficionados , and such details (which are the more demanded for the civfanatics) are out of their plans.

In the same way goes the idea of the "neutral civilization" instead of barbarians, a civ that could have common reseach, but with every city managing itself with autonomy (as small states), and players could peacefully (a la Imperialism) incorporate that cities in their civ, by cultural/commercial influence.

[Sandman]

Going over the idea again, some issues raise themselves.

Supposing you change from monarchy to republic. The loyal monarchists will have a military advantage over the republicans.

I had previously thought that it should be guaranteed that your rebels seize the capital. But this could be abused by heaping all your military units into the capital prior to the revolution. So not even your capital would be safe from counter-revolutionaries. Although a revolutionary capital should be a reasonable bet.

Should rebel cities be totally random, just on the outskirts of your empire, or decided in a more obscure way? Like cities with factories being more likely to become/remain communist.

Remembering the religion special ability: Looks like the revolution system is the same as always. Oh well. It's fun to speculate. Maybe civ4?

[TechWins]

Stuff like this has been discussed before. I for one am glad that Firaxis decided to keep Civ3 fun by not including anything like this (at least it appears as if they didn't). It doesn't add much fun at all. Lets keep Civ fun and have Alt. Civ's or mod creators make complex situations like this be in the game just to make the game complex, even though it makes gameplay worse.

[Inverse Icarus]

eh. you can't have civs breaking into pieces over and over. i think the enroaching culture deal will be sufficient.

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Sandman
Remembering the religion special ability: Looks like the revolution system is the same as always. Oh well. It's fun to speculate. Maybe civ4?

Domestic politics were included only nominal in Civ and Civ2 (unhappy citizens, senate), and nothing we know about Civ3 so far indicates a change. (And while SMAC´s Social Engineering was viewed as superior to Civ´s governments by some members of Apolyton, it did not improve the revolution system either.)

As a matter of principle, I like the idea that during revolutions or prolonged wars, some part of my empire may try to split off and establish itself as a new civ. However, I don´t like random factors that decide which part tries to split off. After all, this is no natural disaster a la Civ´s earthquakes. If I lose one third of my prospering cities to seceders, this should be only the result of subjacent differences and tensions that were already there before.

To model this in Civ, you´d probably need local underlings that you could piss off by seemingly wrong decisions. Internal factions and struggles. The whole domestic politics stuff. I don´t think that´s going to happen in Civ3. Maybe in Civ4 if there´s such a thing. (And, if Quicksilver delivers as promised, in Master of Orion 3).