On reversions (revised)

[GePap]

Well, as there seems to be a bumper crop of new ideas for game concepts croping up, I decide to add another, plus this is a revision of ideas broguht up later.
I think that the suggestions being made have to keep practicallity in mind:Civ can't be EU, so instituting concepts as nuanced as those in EU is hard. Besides, we have to keep the masses in mind.

So, the point of this thread is to dicuss how cities change hands and what the people in the city do about it. There are three ways cities change hands: diplomacy, cultural 'conquest' and war.

Diplomacy: If I agree to give a city away, or someone gives me one, I think that the city should go intact to the other side, cultural borders the same (all culture points accumulated since reaching the last stage removed), cultural buildings untouched (though returning to work like new ones). The garrison of the city is transfered to the nearest city of the one that gave it away (you don't loose any troops), and the nationality of the citizens remains that of the person that gave it away (all that happened was a friendly change of government). One regular defensive unit is formed in the city for the new owner [all in all, not that different from what happens in civ3]
Cultural 'conquest': here we get two paths, peaceful and not. Lets say a city revolts and asks a neighbor to join. If the neighbor says yes, the owner of the city is given a choice- let it go, or fight. If you say let it go, it fuctions as a diplomatic hand over, though the nationality of the citizens is changed to that of the civ taking it (that's why the revolted in the first place!). If you say No, there is now war [for diplomatic purposes, the civ that agreed to take the city has committed an aggressive act]. All cultural city improvements destroyed,as are all admin ones (barracks, courthouse, police) and one regular defensive unit is formed. Your garrison is placed in a square outside the city, all having taken one HP damage. Now, it is up to the garrison to retake the city.

War: Here is the more complex part. Lets say the garrison retook the city, now what? As we said, the city citizens changed their nationality, so you are now dealing wiht a foreign people. I divide this into two eras, pre and post nationalism.
Pre nationalism: Within the city, part of the population become resisters. Now, each resiter creates 3 resistance points (graphically, little red hand holding a torch). The system of revolt functions on these points. As long as there are non-represed resistance points present, the city is in disorder, and there is a 25% chance of revolt breaking out. If a revolt occurs, your garrison is placed outside the city, having taken one HP damage. A regular defendor pops. up in the city (which has returned to the control of the original civ). To prevent this you have to repress the resisatnce points and eliminate them. To repress resitance points you need troops. Defensive units repress 2 points, offensives 1 (this is due to termperment, training, tactical differences). Lets say you have a city of 8, with two resisters (6 points). 3 defensive units brought in will repress the points. Once the points are repressed, the city can begin to build again (though it can't ever be WLTKD). While there are repressed resitance points in a city, there is a 5% chance of revolt breaking out. So, you have to destroy the points. This is done with happiness (those little happy faces). One happy face destroys one resistance point per turn (troops in the city do not create happy faces, as they are busy repressing the points). So, if in this city you build one temple, which cretaes one happy face per turn, then in six turns, resistance points are gone, along with the danger of revolt.
Nationalism makes things much more dangerous. First, each resister now counts as 4 points, and it will take two happy faces to destoy one point (graphically, the hand now holds a gun) per turn. The precentage for possible revolt with unrepressed points jumps to 50%, with repressed it stays at 5%. In addition, we have what are called guerrilas, forming. guerrilas are a 3/4/1 unit that moves as an explorer. NOw, these units have various special attibutes. 1. they can't be built, only created. 2. They have enhanced terrain defensive bonuses for mountains, forests, jungles. On mountains and jungles, 200%, so that they have 12 defense there, in forrests 100%, so they have 8. They have normal bonuses everywhere else. 3. Guerrilas have a bonus attcking cities based on the resitance points. Every non-repressed resiatnce point adds +2 attack, each 2 repressed ands +1. So, if the city has 1 unrepressed point, and 11 repressed, thats 3(original)+2+5, or attack 10 into the city. The number of guerrilas formed at the outset is equal to the number of resiters (not resitance points). Each turn there are unrepressed points a new guerilla will appear near the city. There is a 10% chance that one will appear if there are resiastance points at all. Revolts work the same as before.

I think this system is good because, while keeping things challenging, gives players the knowledge of what they must do to keep a city and thus they can plan. It also makes cultural defection more dnagerous, since it might lead to war. I think that possible applications could be found for resistance points and guerrilas, dealing with internal politics, civil wars, and propaganda, but this post is long enough as is. Any comments?

[Chowlett]

Oh, my.

I like the concept, the concept is good.

I don't like the complications, the complications are bad. Something a tad simpler along the same lines maybe?

[GePap]

Further thoughts

Chowlett:
What complications? NO, really, its a bunch of different numbers, but at the same time, its a bunch of simple numbers following simple rules. I prefer knowing why my cites are leaving me instead of just praying. It can't be that much more complex than the formula they use to figure corruption, only they don't tell us what it is.

The more I look at resistance points, the more it can be used universally. I think this can 1. Create a simple to follow methos for inciting reovlts and civil wars, 2. Make propaganda more fun while less powerfull (if you could ever really afford it) and give more distinction to government types, plus help make dem. a better wartime gov and weaken communism somewhat.

When i mean universal, I mean make resistance points like pollution points, there for a civ all the time, based on your actions and buildings. certain actions you took (pop. rush, giving cities away, offensive wars, building certain things or choosing certain govrnments) could all create a level of empire wide resistance value. How much resistance could be based on government type, and perhaps even civ chracteristics, making these more important or different. Resistance would spread from the capitol, so it would be strongest at the center and weaken as one goes out.
Lets use examples. Lets say that we say that attacking an ally wouldd create 10 resitance points in your capitol, with this lessening with distance, so that cities on the fringe of the empire suffer only 4. Now, as i mentioned above, happy faces undo resiatnce, so any city creating 4 happy faces out there would face no problems. Now, what if you have only a temple? Well, thats 1 point undone. That leaves 3. As I said before, defensive units repress these points by 2, so if the garrison is of one, then these two points are repressed. I woould add that since the unit is now repressing, it no longer keeps people happy. Thus a direct corrolation between resistance and unhappiness since resistance would invariably increase unhappiness in certain government types. That leaves one. I say that administrative buildings,Palace, Police, courts, barracks, should also repress points, with Palace repressing 6 (forbidden palace 5), Police stations 2, Barracjks and courts 1. So, if the city on the fringe has one temple, a barracks, and 1 pikeman in it, then it has three repressed points in it.

Now, as said above, a city with repressed points has a chance of going into revolt. This is where this idea mixes with civil wars. If an action was taken that created lots of resistance, it is possible that many cities will go into revolt, thus creating a sort of Civl war. NOw, I would keep the chance at 1 in 20 before nationalism. After nationalism, the chance of revolt from your own nationality would go down- because of national unity- to 1 in 40, but the chance of citizens from other groups revolting would remain the same, the same as that of captured cities, 1 in 20. Citties with unrepressed points of course would have a much higer chance, 1 in 4 before nationalism and for non-nationals all the time, go down to 1 in 10 after nationalism for your own people. As you remember, these are the same values as for conquered cities before nationalism. In this system, what happens in conquered cities is simply a local occurence of something that could be empire wide.
Now, cities after communism would also spawn guerrillas (so these guerrillas are ideologically based, fighting your gov, while those from cities captured are nationalisitc guerrillas, like those that battled Napoleons troops in Spain) though at a lower rate, lets say 1 in 25. Thus, if you are a government taking lots of terrible decisions then you may have to be fighting internal rebels.

Now, as I said, we could use these to weaken govs or strengthen govs. For democracy there would be two BIG changes. 1. Democracy inherently suffers less resistance points, since there are alternatives to voice opinions. 2. During offensive wars, your government would only fall into anarchy if there were unrepressed resistance points around, and it would not be immidiate. If a resistance point came up, there would be a 1 in 4 chance of anarchy. During Vietnam there was lots of anarchy in the streets, but the governemnt held and was able to continue bussiness because there was no serious challange to its power- riots were terrible, but elections went as scheduled and the system survived. So, as a dem, if you increase the precense of troops in the street and build more admin buildings, then you could, even waging an offfensive war, stop anarchy. But it will cost you big. Dems could also be given bonuses for defending their cities. That means that if an undemocratic opponent takes your city, resistance is higer for cities of a democracy than for cities of other forms of government.
Now, Communist governments could be given repression bonuses for buildings- better internal police. At the same time more of the actions taken by communist governments would bring about resistance, specially forced pop. rush. At the same time, Communist government would not get the nationalism bonus that makes cities of your nationality less likely to revolt. Thus, while communist are better at represing, they have to do it a lot more. Also, communist cities would not get the democratic bonus, so they would be easier to take if the enemy counterattacks. Also, since communist governemnt would be much more likely to have resistance points around, they would have far less WLTKDs.

Finally: In propaganda, what you would be doing is increasing the resistance points a city suffers locally, thus leading to a revolt or more likely, the creation of guerrillas, and if a revolt occurs, they will choose your civ to join. Of course, this might mean war with your neighbor.

[Whoha]

this is just beating a dead horse, raze the city and be done with it, thats what the computer does.