Civil War Discussion

[TinCow]

I've noticed a lot of people asking for Civil Wars back and I agree. I know this probably should appear in one of the Top threads, but I'd kind of like a seperate thread to discuss ideas for Civil War implementation.

Civil Wars were excellent in Civ2, but I think there was one fundamental flaw in them... they essentially destroyed any opposition a civ posed to the person capturing its capital. Civil Wars were fun, but their only use was in watching an enemy civ's empire turn to dust. If Civil Wars are going to be put into Civ3, they need to apply seriously to the human players as well (it's rare that humans ever lose their capital).

What if Civil Wars had a probability of occurring based on the war weariness of the civ (like Democracy collapsing)? The longer and more aggressively you war, the more likely you are to have a revolution within your empire (depending on your govt of course). The cities that revolt will depend on their former culture rating. Cities that you founded will never join the rebel faction because they never had a 'previous civ culture level.' Every city which you have captured will defect if it's current culture level is lower than its culture level under it's original civ. Thus, enemy capitals and big cities would almost certainly go, while you would maintain control over your original cities and the smaller, more easily controllable foreign population. It should make no difference if the citizens of the rebel city have all been assimilated, if you haven't sufficiently developed the city so that it has passed its old culture level, you will lose it if a Civil War erupts. The civ that these cities join will be determined in the following order:
1) Largest civ that the player has conquered.
2) If player has not conquered any civs, the largest civ that has most recently been eliminated.
3) If no civs have been eliminated, the cities revert to the owners that had them with their highest culture rating.

In addition, all units in the cities and within the city radius should switch sides intact.

Such a drastic loss should only occur under extreme circumstances. It should be more likely (with high war weariness) under govts that tolerate more free speech (much more likely under Dem and Rep than under Comm). In addition, if it is found that this system results in too much loss for the player in question, the defecting cities could be given a probability of defection based on the ratio of their current culture to their former culture rather than just automatically defecting.

Comments? Ideas?

[Grrr]

Remember the following message in Civ2:

As the dust settles on Berlin, what remains of the German empire has split into the loyal German factor and the rebel French factor.

I loved spliting civ's like this. Sadly this feature is missing in Civ3. I would like it reimplemented, but slightly differently...

A civil war should only break out if the civ is one of the top 25% most powerful. The civ should not split neatly like in Civ2, but be a mess. Cities close to a civ whose culture of which they are in awe, should culturally deflect.
Of the other cities, the citizens should be loyal in a ratio of the culture of that city to twice the culture of the average city of that empire, ie, the city with average culture has equal amounts of both nationalities. If a city has more loyal citizens, it remains a German city. If it has more rebel cities, it becomes a French (or whatever) city.

For instance the German empire had 7 cities:

Berlin which I captured, and trigered the Civil War
Leipzig which has a cultural value of 28
Hamburg which has a cultural value of 22
Konigsberg which has a cultural value of 16
Frankfurt which has a cultural value of 4 and is near my border
Munich which has a cultural value of 10
Heidelburg which has a cultural value of 0

Frankfurt becomes mine due to the fact that it is near my border, and they are in awe of my culture.
The average of 28,22,16,10,0 is roughly 15.
Therefore
For every 30 citizens in Leipzig, 28 will be loyal Germans, 2 will be rebel French. The city will remain German.
For every 30 citizens in Hamburg, 22 will be loyal Germans, 8 will be rebel French. The city will remain German.
For every 30 citizens in Konigsberg, 16 will be loyal Germans, 14 will be rebel French. The city will become French.
For every 30 citizens in Munich, 10 will be loyal Germans, 20 will be rebel French. The city will become French.
For every 30 citizens in Heidelberg, none will be loyal Germans, 30 will be rebel French. The city will become French.

French citizens in Germany will be unhappy or resisting, and German citizens in France will be unhappy or resisting, in the same way as when one captures a city.

Of course, a Civ this size shouldn't split.
This is the same as the reply to this thread.

[TinCow]

My problem with this is that I think a Civil War should be something that could happen to the human player too... not just to the poor bastard civ that's getting its arse beaten. I have rarely seen a civ recover from losing its capital... namely because if it loses what is usually the largest, most advanced, most well defended city in its empire (which is also not near the border) then it's already a goner civ... where's the excitement in seeing that civ split? In my example, you could win a war of attrition against a much larger Democratic enemy by switching to Communism and making him fight (holding your borders) until his nation goes into Civil War. I think that would be pretty damn cool.

[Grrr]

Originally posted by TinCow
My problem with this is that I think a Civil War should be something that could happen to the human player too... not just to the poor bastard civ that's getting its arse beaten. I have rarely seen a civ recover from losing its capital... namely because if it loses what is usually the largest, most advanced, most well defended city in its empire (which is also not near the border) then it's already a goner civ... where's the excitement in seeing that civ split? In my example, you could win a war of attrition against a much larger Democratic enemy by switching to Communism and making him fight (holding your borders) until his nation goes into Civil War. I think that would be pretty damn cool.

Civil War should be possible if more than a half of your citizens are unhappy or foreign.

[Quokka]

I agree with Grrr, Civil War should be a possibility when half the citizens are Unhappy or Foreigners or the Capital is sacked. War Weariness would be a major factor in this, just think of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Definitely should affect human players too.
The mechanics of the split should have something to do with the culture of the city. The more culture the more they are that Civ. No culture cities have no massive attachment to that culture.
I was thinking the radius needs to have more effect. Something like this. These cities would need to be in civil disorder or mostly foreign.
Radius 1(0-9): 25% of staying loyal
Radius 2(10-99): 50% of staying loyal
Radius 3(100-999): 75% of staying loyal
Radius 4 and above stay loyal always.
Majority Foreign cities would flip back to their original owners and the others could form a new Civ. Pretty basic right now but we have to start somewhere.

[Captain]

Civil war sounds interesting but TinCow makes some good points.
There's got to be something to prevent that empire from getting easily taken piecemeal.

1. They shouldn't automatically join other civs.

2. They should form their own temporary civ - which ONLY produces military until the war is over (and NO peace is possible).
(maybe if there's an empty slot. You can have up to 8 civil wars max with 8 players, or 1 civil war with 15)

3. They should automatically convert some of their population to conscripts so they're not easy pickings.

Other civs can conquer but may not want to get embroiled in the conflict (civs in civil war should be extremely likely to revolt from foreign rule).

4. Plus, you needn't lose your capital for this to happen.
There should be a rough chance of civil war every time you have a revolution. Switching to repub from monarch will be resisted and the monarchists might resist losing authority and so take control of some cities. The more "culture" you have, the more peaceful the transition.

5. And different forms of government should increase hostility to each other. Monarchists vs Republicans, Democ vs commies, commies vs Monarchists. People in power tend to support other people in power, even if rivals, because worse of all would be your own subjects uprising.

a couple of examples:
The Russian revolution - bolsheviks vs monarchists, dropped them out of ww1 while they fought and consolidated power.
the allies got involved to restore the monarchy so that the russians would rejoin the war vs germany (one of the reasons the provisional gov fell was they voted to stay in the war in exchange for allied assistance).

The US civil war - in this case, no one else was around that cared enough to get involved in the war. they were an ocean away. sure, divided america might fall, but a far-off country full of soldiers fighting isn't a nice prize.

French revolution - not quite full civil war but close (see culture idea above), with many vying for power (Jacobins, Marat, Robespierre, Danton, the Directory, and later Napoleon), plus austria and Prussia were hostile to the overthrow of the monarchy.

The Vietnam war - first to oust the French, later the Northern communist state versus the US backed southm, here others did get involved, much to their regret

Most recent of China's civil wars - Warlord period where the Nationalists fought the communists (not the most powerful groups but the most ideological)
they cooperated at first vs the Japanese but that didn't last long!

[simwiz2]

"In my example, you could win a war of attrition against a much larger Democratic enemy by switching to Communism and making him fight (holding your borders) until his nation goes into Civil War. I think that would be pretty damn cool."

Great, a communist gov can already hold a democracy hostage with War Weariness and ANARCHY, and now lets add civil war to make this unrealistic and cheap strategy even more effective.

Come on, think of the multiplayer we might be getting someday. Do you really want any communist government to not only destroy a democratic government at will, but also to split the empire in half???

What a mess that would be

[Ghengis-Sean]

I have to agree with TinCow here; civil war should be possible, but not based on the old empire splitting model. Under that model you know if you take out a big civ's capital you'll split, so that's what you do. Something else is needed. possible factors that should induce revolt/civil war should be;

I think the main factor for starting a civil war is contact with Capital; if a city or group of cities have no contact with their capital for a number of turns then they should revolt and form a new civ. A new capital should be built in the largest of the out of touch cities and all cities that are not in contact with their original capital but are in contact with the new capital would then join the new civ. Under this system an especially spread out empire could break up into several factions. Certain city improvements such as courthouse, barracks or police station might delay this revolt but not stop it 100%.

EXAMPLE; the Germans based on the side of a continent control a number of medium sized islands off the coast. The Germans lose their coastal cities and also lose contact with their island cities. After a number of turns these cities should create a new civ, the French.

sound good?

[GePap]

some problems

In Civ2, you could only get civil war if one of the original factions was dead -thus allowing space for the new civ using the characteristics of the dead one- so if you have all civs still around, where will this new civ come?

The major theoretical problems is categorizing the type of civil war_there are two, for control of governemnts and control of land.
The russian, spanish,and english civil wars were all about who should govern the entirety of the land. The American, Yugoslav, and Nigerian (Biafra) civil wars are about groupings that want to break off and become independant. How would these two be differentiated? And whats the victory condition for a civil war?

[ACooper]

I don't care how it's implemented. Civil Wars would be very welcome. I think if 40% or more of your population is unhappy they could break away and form a new civ.

I also liked the volcanoes and other natual disasters in Civ1

Bring 'em back!

[Grrr]

Originally posted by Quokka
I agree with Grrr, Civil War should be a possibility when half the citizens are Unhappy or Foreigners or the Capital is sacked. War Weariness would be a major factor in this, just think of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Definitely should affect human players too.
The mechanics of the split should have something to do with the culture of the city. The more culture the more they are that Civ. No culture cities have no massive attachment to that culture.
I was thinking the radius needs to have more effect. Something like this. These cities would need to be in civil disorder or mostly foreign.
Radius 1(0-9): 25% of staying loyal
Radius 2(10-99): 50% of staying loyal
Radius 3(100-999): 75% of staying loyal
Radius 4 and above stay loyal always.
Majority Foreign cities would flip back to their original owners and the others could form a new Civ. Pretty basic right now but we have to start somewhere.

I prefer my way using averages, rather than radius amounts. I mean, all your useless frontier cities are going to revolt, and they are easy to capture because they have usually not built up a great deal in the way of military.

[Grrr]

Re: some problems

Originally posted by GePap
In Civ2, you could only get civil war if one of the original factions was dead -thus allowing space for the new civ using the characteristics of the dead one- so if you have all civs still around, where will this new civ come?

That is not the case, civil war could occur, and the new civ got the BROWN colour. Also, an idea on implementation would be to have the same charataristics and stuff as the orginal civ, and just change the colour and civ name. For instance Germans become Huns, and French become Gauls, or Zulu's become Hutus or something similar. The same pic would be used. I mean, if you are the germans, your civ splits, and suddenly you become zulu, you never have a unique unit. You should become Hun, lead by a guy that looks like bismarck, but is acctually some other german.

The major theoretical problems is categorizing the type of civil war_there are two, for control of governemnts and control of land.
The russian, spanish,and english civil wars were all about who should govern the entirety of the land. The American, Yugoslav, and Nigerian (Biafra) civil wars are about groupings that want to break off and become independant. How would these two be differentiated? And whats the victory condition for a civil war?

The English civil war is really the war of the two parties created by the war.

Another point I like, is that the both civ's are in a state similar to mobilization until peace or victory.

[Captain]

I prefer my way using averages, rather than radius amounts. I mean, all your useless frontier cities are going to revolt, and they are easy to capture because they have usually not built up a great deal in the way of military.

I think the radius makes more sense because you rebel cities shouldn't go off an join another civ so the other civ's culture shouldn't matter. Or tie in another idea mentioned above, contact with capital. Distance should be calculated as the shortest #moves to the capital (roads help, RR's are great, but not much you can do about oceans!)
Of course, civil disorder and happiness are the prime factors, but then distance should matter more than an enemy culture.

But, the rebel cities should get automatic conscripts. (If they have barracks then they'd be regulars). Plus some units are already in the city, that should be tough enough. Besides, it's now "foreign" territory so you can't just march over there. They have time to muster defenses.

And since they're mobilized, they're going to produce hordes of troops because it's all or nothing. No peace til total victory.

[Captain]

one more point:

the rebel civ might not need to be a full-fledged civ AI.
it could just be a simplified AI with the goal of conquering you (or their mother AI).
after all, in *most civil wars, the prime goal was military victory, not building infrastructure! (*there are exceptions of course)

for simplicity, we could disallow war between the AI rebels and other AI civs because the AI rebels shouldn't be allowed to negotiate. It's already hard enough for you to reconquer them AND catch up to everyone else not having civil war.

(on the other hand, if we can somehow fit them in, it'd be nice to have a new full-fledged AI rival that used to be part of your empire - or someone elses!)

[Grrr]

Originally posted by Captain
one more point:

the rebel civ might not need to be a full-fledged civ AI.
it could just be a simplified AI with the goal of conquering you (or their mother AI).
after all, in *most civil wars, the prime goal was military victory, not building infrastructure! (*there are exceptions of course)

for simplicity, we could disallow war between the AI rebels and other AI civs because the AI rebels shouldn't be allowed to negotiate. It's already hard enough for you to reconquer them AND catch up to everyone else not having civil war.

(on the other hand, if we can somehow fit them in, it'd be nice to have a new full-fledged AI rival that used to be part of your empire - or someone elses!)

True, but isn't this making a "Standard Cookie Cutter Template".

Also, a military alliance to combat the other half of your civ would be good.