Civil War Discussion

[Grrr]

Originally posted by ****gyRA
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!

No thanks!

I find that disasters happen in too short a timeframe to be realistically reinacarnated into Civ3. I mean, if Mt St Helens blows it's top today, in 2 years time, the area will be back to normal again.

[Willem]

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?

You wouldn't need another civ if the foregone conclusion was that eventually the two factions will resolve their differences and reunite. As soon as one side or the other gains control of 60% of the cities the civil war ends. But during the conflict, the culture output is reduced, 50% say so that there would be a chance that some of the outlying cities will become assimilated into another Civ. So they'd be back in the game, but smaller, with maybe some improvements destroyed because of the fighting.

[ACooper]

Originally posted by Grrr


No thanks!

I find that disasters happen in too short a timeframe to be realistically reinacarnated into Civ3. I mean, if Mt St Helens blows it's top today, in 2 years time, the area will be back to normal again.

Mt. St. Helens area was changed forever.

Seen it.

[Arrian]

Cool ideas, but...

First off, let me be clear: I think the ideas presented here are great.

However, I seriously doubt that any of them will be implemented in Civ III . This is complicated stuff, and I would imagine that adding it in to a (semi)finished game would be difficult and therefore time consuming and therefore expensive.

That being said, I'd like to add this: I don't think triggering a civil war by capturing a capitol is a good idea. As someone else mentioned, that civ is already in deep and serious trouble. Second, that civ is fighting for its life, and I think it's unlikely that a civil war would erupt when there is a more dangerous foe to combat. China, WWII: communists and nationalists managed to (mostly) halt their civil war to deal with Japan... and once that was done, Mao and Chiang Kai Shek (spelling is probably wrong) went at it again.

-Arrian

[Willem]

Re: Cool ideas, but...

Originally posted by Arrian
First off, let me be clear: I think the ideas presented here are great.

However, I seriously doubt that any of them will be implemented in Civ III . This is complicated stuff, and I would imagine that adding it in to a (semi)finished game would be difficult and therefore time consuming and therefore expensive.

That being said, I'd like to add this: I don't think triggering a civil war by capturing a capitol is a good idea. As someone else mentioned, that civ is already in deep and serious trouble. Second, that civ is fighting for its life, and I think it's unlikely that a civil war would erupt when there is a more dangerous foe to combat. China, WWII: communists and nationalists managed to (mostly) halt their civil war to deal with Japan... and once that was done, Mao and Chiang Kai Shek (spelling is probably wrong) went at it again.

-Arrian

Good point. But all that means is adding an algorithim that only allows a civil war during a time of peace. As for the other Civs, if they were provided an algorithim that forced them into a non-interference/non-aggression policy in the event of civil war, and cultural output was reduced during the conflict, then the only real concern would be assimilation.

And as the human player, if you attack a Civ that is in the midst of a civil war, you suffer drastic diplomatic repercussions, and may suddenly find yourself at war with two or three other Civs that were previously tolerant. Only your friendliest allies would go along with the idea, though your rating with them would be greatly reduced. And further attacks against a vulnerable opponent would increase the likehood of even maintaining those ties.

[Quokka]

I really like an idea I saw in another thread about Refugees. They are a worker without any abilities except add to city. I forget how they mentioned they would create them but this is how I would do it.
They are workers without any abilities except Add to City. They have Move 2 & All terrain as road, when people split they split as fast and as light as they can. They would still be your nationality but give them automated(random)movement to try and move away from the cause of the disorder(Riots in City) by the fastest possible route, even if that means towards another Civ. You would have to track them down and recapture (calm) them, which would make their movement controllable.
They are created whenever a city experiences Riots with the same chance as Resistors. They could also be created when the Capitol is sacked, ie widespread panic.
Come to think of it Refugees would be a better idea than Resistors altogether. Its a little strange to take a city and have 6 out of 6 citizens resist but noone flee. Active Resistance is always a very small minority of people, not everyone. More often in history there is a tide of refugees fleeing war or a conquered city, resistance is usually over by the time the Army enters the city or they wouldn't be there.
In SMAC when a Human Civ took out an Alien City it reduced to size 1 and half the pop showed up as Colony Pods similar to how workers appear from razed cities. It would be better if the pop became Refugees. The cause of the disorder would be your armies so they would flee from them. Or make them War Refugees and give them controlable movement, same as the calmed Refugees.
To replace the Resistor element just make everyone in the city unhappy for a certain time. I would make this 6 turns divided by the culture ratio of you:them. So if they are in awe of you then they would return to normal after, 6/3 = 2 turns. If the were Disdainful of you it would take 6/0.33 = 18 turns.
If you think of it as the pop that doesn't flee is the more docile/old/sick element of the city then they are also the more likely to accept the New Order quicker than those that were organised enough to flee, especially if they bring in all the amenities like luxuries, entertainment, health care. Thats how I think the culture rating would be represented here. A Civ high in cultrure is usually more advanced and luxurious than those that are not. The long unhappiness for poor culture would also represent this as it would essentially be a military occupation.
Examples of this would be Australia and North Korea. Australia has a strong culture and high standard of living and people from all over the world try to emigrate there, but we have a small military. North Korea is essentially as advanced as Australia, for the leaders anyway, but has no culture or luxuries and nobody wants to live there, not even the people there now, but they have a huge military. When Australian Troops went into Timor the people were happy but if North Korean Troops were to go to Japan the Japanese wouldn't be happy about it.

[Willem]

Re: Cool ideas, but...

Originally posted by Arrian

However, I seriously doubt that any of them will be implemented in Civ III . This is complicated stuff, and I would imagine that adding it in to a (semi)finished game would be difficult and therefore time consuming and therefore expensive.

-Arrian

It would be much cheaper in the long run for Firaxis/Infrogames to implement some of the changes that people are requesting, as opposed to having fans of the game lose interest and switch to some other platform.

[Quokka]

But during the conflict, the culture output is reduced, 50% say so that there would be a chance that some of the outlying cities will become assimilated into another Civ

I think this idea is essentially flawed in that Civil War is the ugliest of wars. You HATE the others with an unusually irrational and uncontrollable hate. It really is you or them. There should be no culture generated at all during a civil war as that is normally what the war is about anyway culture, ideology and religion are the frequent causes. Culture in a conquered city should be reset to zero but the cultural buildings should only have the same chance as the other buildings of being destroyed, not automatic as normal.
The US Civil War very simplified was North: We don't like your Slavery & South: Leave us alone. Clash of two cultures neither of which got stronger or swayed either side during the war.
Against this the Warring Civs should be immune to cultural absorption during this time. Everyone is bent on destroying 'them', and won't be distracted by a nice Temple and some pretty Parks and switch sides, they are fighting for their way of life and aren't concerned with stuff like that. The warring Civs should have their Diplomatic options reduced to Alliances against each other, with all trades being cancelled.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Quokka


I think this idea is essentially flawed in that Civil War is the ugliest of wars. You HATE the others with an unusually irrational and uncontrollable hate. It really is you or them. There should be no culture generated at all during a civil war as that is normally what the war is about anyway culture, ideology and religion are the frequent causes. Culture in a conquered city should be reset to zero but the cultural buildings should only have the same chance as the other buildings of being destroyed, not automatic as normal.
The US Civil War very simplified was North: We don't like your Slavery & South: Leave us alone. Clash of two cultures neither of which got stronger or swayed either side during the war.
Against this the Warring Civs should be immune to cultural absorption during this time. Everyone is bent on destroying 'them', and won't be distracted by a nice Temple and some pretty Parks and switch sides, they are fighting for their way of life and aren't concerned with stuff like that. The warring Civs should have their Diplomatic options reduced to Alliances against each other, with all trades being cancelled.

Well yes, Civil War should be something drastic. But on the other hand, if it were happening to your own Civ, you don't want it to become an excuse for another Civ to walk in an take over everything. You'd be out of the game the first time it happened, especially with the AI propensity to pick on a weak Civ. There would have to be enough left over of your empire that as soon as you have regained control, you can have a chance at regaining you former glory. This could be be accomplished if the only losses of cities was strictly cultural.

In your example of the American civil war, culture didn't just suddenly end. The South just decided to take a different approach from those in the North, and the conflict delayed the advancement of each respective culture.

[Ghengis-Sean]

Actually once large scale industrialization began to kick in labor unrest and a demand for a larger voice in goverment spurred many revolutions in industrialized countries during the 19th century.

I think that the more industrialized a civ becomes the greater corresponding unhappiness. Ot myabe as soon as someone discovers communism the labor unrest ball can get rolling.

All in all though the Be-a-rebel for a few turns is a good idea, but slightly un-realisitic because if it happened to me I would just go back to my last resave and bypass the problem. It's something that could be interesting once but most likely not twice. This holds true for anything that deprives a player of choice. If for whatever reason the player is deprived of being able to play the game, even for a few turns, they are going to be extremely dissatisfied. Imagine a driving game where every once in awhile the computer just starts driving and you get to be the passenger, how much fun is that?

I think civil war is a great idea because it adds depth and realism to the game, and this holds true for coups too. However coups are a bit iffy, perhaps to replace AI leaders, which could be interesting, but nothing to deprive the player of his/her ability to play.

just some thoughts,

[Captain]

Originally posted by korn469
Captain

have you played SMAX? it introduced Aliens to alpha centauri, and when a human conquered an alien base, or when an alien conquered a human base, that base went down to size one and two refugee units (i think they were actually colony pods but i don't remember for sure) appeared beside the city, so it is in firaxis's ability to code that in

Funny thing about that...
Bought the regular game plus expansion, played once as the PeaceKeepers. Shoved it in a desk drawer, hasn't seen the light of day since. Never tried the expansion.

Two tiny little things annoyed me so much I never played again.

1. Totally unintuitive research concepts. (And I have a degree in engineering. Maybe I'm just not "cutting edge" though.) On the other hand, loved the blind research option - should be in civ 3, directed research was never especially strong until recently - alchemy had derivatives but not achievable directives.

2. Graphics were abominable!
Those stupid ugly little soldiers looked like they were pushing treadmills around. I can just imagine my soldiers making such intimidating remarks as "surrender or I might start running and not go anywhere!"
Worst of all, after an hour of play, the red blotchy-ness of Planet hurt my eyes. I HAD to stop playing or go insane. What an ugly planet! I wouldn't have colonized it - I would have tried to leave!
(loved the way you could name landmarks though!)

Were those refugees controlled by the humans or the aliens though?
Can't remember offhand, but don't you already get workers when razing a city in civ 3?

I think refugees should be much more useless than workers - they're supposed to be running for their lives! And they should be easier to make.

As for how many of those ideas got incorporated, why be surprised korn? you're very well known on these boards and firaxis does seem to pay attention!
as for the way they keep coming up in new threads a year later? well, great minds think alike!

[Quokka]

The Southern Culture did end. There is no more slavery which is what the North wanted. The South was forcibly rejoined to the North and their Economy, Money, Schools and Laws all changed to that of the Union, no more Confederacy. Apart from the Abolition of Slavery the other changes were not that major as they had been one people before and were only two countries for the length of the war. Neither country expanded culturally during that time. No country ususally does during war, but right after there is usually an explosion of culture, joy and babies, so maybe the culture could accrue and the winning Civ would get it all in one lump sum at the end of the war in the loyal cities.
No I don't want it happening to my Civ, but that's the whole point. Under my idea there would only be two ways to go into Civil War and either way basically means you're toast anyway. Massive Civil Disorder from continued mismanagement or brutality or the Sacking of your Capitol. The first way means everyone hates you enough to try and overthrow you so much that they don't just vote you out but form their own country and you're not invited. Secondly somebody is already kicking your arse if they sack your capitol so they are already taking everything.
It takes a long time for countries to recover from Civil Wars they don't just recover their former glory, take Lebanon they have not recovered from their war, also Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. Officially the wars are over there, but they are nowhere near their former selves. And plenty of land grabs have occured whenever there was Civil War or Disorder, the ancient era is littered with rebellions and subsequent powerplays.

[Captain]

some help from Programmers?

Originally posted by Arrian
First off, let me be clear: I think the ideas presented here are great.

However, I seriously doubt that any of them will be implemented in Civ III . This is complicated stuff, and I would imagine that adding it in to a (semi)finished game would be difficult and therefore time consuming and therefore expensive.

-Arrian

I have some programming background, but not enough to make an AI.
Would those out there with more experience in the field be willing to venture whether or not a simple scripting tool (like in civ 2's editor) would suffice to do achieve some of our more simplistic civil war goals?

I assume the game already keeps track of happies and resistors, right? So adding in a script that compares unhappyness levels or civil disorders to your total population or #of cities, should be easy enough, right?

Then a simple "create rebel unit(s)" at X empty location(s).
Then this rebel "barb" can capture your revolting cities and try to conquer you.
Or since they already have a mechanism for city "flip", this can happen plus "create rebel unit(s)" in the rebel city.

Creating a whole new AI civ to run half the empire is beyond me for now...

Whatever the possibility - your revolting civs should NOT join another pre-existing civ. It's civil war and as I mentioned in numerous examples before, the factions either try to take over govt or stay independent. They don't go off and join some totally different civ!

[Captain]

Re: Re: Cool ideas, but...

Originally posted by Willem

And as the human player, if you attack a Civ that is in the midst of a civil war, you suffer drastic diplomatic repercussions, and may suddenly find yourself at war with two or three other Civs that were previously tolerant. Only your friendliest allies would go along with the idea, though your rating with them would be greatly reduced. And further attacks against a vulnerable opponent would increase the likehood of even maintaining those ties.

Hmmm. In my history studies, I often encountered the idea of the "Balance of Power".
Countries would often go to war, or coalitions of countries would, when a large country picked on a small country because they feared the large country's expansion would disrupt the balance of power.

In Civ 3, it's the opposite. The AI is nasty when you're weak and nice when you're strong.
Instead of protecting the weak, the way the AI tries to prevent overexpansion of a rival is to ally with them and try to grab some of the cities first!

While this does happen, a la Red Army versus Western Allies carving up Europe or with Africa's colonization - in civil war, most people try to prevent others from interfering - when they can afford to (no one messed with Japan invading China for decades before the Brits in Burma, HK, and Singapore but the Brits had their own worries. Until Pearl Harbour, no one else interfered. but after WW2, US policy was no longer isolationist.)

While Chamberlain's appeasement policy was in force in 1939, the general rule of thumb for British foreign policy prior to that was stick up for the little guy because the bigger guy is more of a threat to you. Keep second place in second place.

Admittedly in early history, lands traded places easily, but more recently, big powers intervne but they don't "own" the place. They "give" it back to the little guy (who happens to be very grateful -think US and Kuwait vs Iraq). In ancient days, "liberation" usually meant just a new empire presiding over you. In WW2, The US and GB didn't take over France, Belgium, Netherlands, they gave it back. On the other hand the Red Army kept Poland, Baltic states, Balkan states as satellites.

If anyone tries to pick on a civ in civil war, the others should "gang up" on that civ. Like Willem said.

Another way to prevent this from total destruction (though consider that huge China could not hold off Japan because of internal division and inferior tech, but Japan never got all China) - is for the civ in civil war to be fully mobilized and having soldiers coming out the wazoo! Only the really committed would get entangled in that!

Plus, civil war is more likely with larger empires b/c of the corruption and distance (esp. over the ocean)... so they're not as easy picking anyways!

But Willem's idea of other civ warring with you to stop your rampant opportunism shouldn't be too hard to implement either!

[Ghengis-Sean]

So based upon what I'm reading let me see if I can put this into more concrete terms. What everyone seems to be saying is


1. We like the idea of civil wars, but not on the "Capture the capital, split the empire" model.

2. There should be a distinction between different types of civil war; Political upheval or War of independence.

3. Factors that affect the chances for civil war should include, Communication with Capital, Disorder in cities, Unhappy citizens, and maybe espionage activites of foreign powers.

4. Civil War factions should get the improved production affects (mobilization?), and draft ability until war ends.

and what we can't agree on is...

1. What form do the rebels take; Barbarian, quasi-civ (same civ stats, just a new name so the Russians become Ukrainians, Germans get Bavarians) or a complete civ.

2. How frequently civil wars should occur, rare or common. Should it only happen to the largest civs, or is any civ suceptable?

3. What should other civ's do when their neighbor starts to collapse? Should there be a diplomatic penalty for taking advantage of the chaos?

this is how I'm reading this to date, so any thoughts?