Inherited Discontent

[nationalist]

I am curious as to what the reasoning is behind inherited discontent. By inherited discontent I mean the fact that when I conquer a city that the AI has pop rushed or drafted, the people of that city are unhappy with me for "the cruel oppression that I have bore down upon them" or are saying "Hell no, we won't go!". I didn't do anything to them, the AI did. The thing that bothers me the most about this goes along with my playing style. When I capture a city I reduce it to size 1 through a combination of starvation and creating workers. Once the city only has 1 citizen, I let it grow again, this time producing my own nationality. However, these people of my nationality start saying "Hell no, we won't go" Why? I didn't draft anyone, and the new citizens of the captured city weren't living there when the draft or pop rush took place. Why should I get penalized for what the AI did to citizens that don't exist anymore? A simple solution to this problem would to be to reset the discontent values attributed to pop-rushing when a city changes hands. This is a minor gripe, but I just wondered if anyone else noticed this.

[Arrian]

Yeah, I've noticed it. I hope it can be fixed, because I don't like it. The 1.17 patch makes it possible to keep AI cities you conquer, but at the same time it removes any incentive for you to do so. So it's raze 'n rebuild, as usual.

I think the next patch will somehow address the AI whipping and drafting, which currently cripples the AI late in the game, and that will help this issue too (although that alone will not eliminate inherited unhappiness).

-Arrian

[notyoueither]

I think the concept of Liberator should be introduced. However I'm not sure how to prevent it's exploitation.

Scenario.

I have a city near a civ I am hostile to, but we are at peace. I am preparing for war. I pop rush military units till the city is ready to drop.

I gift the city to the neibour. Unrest gone since there is a new ruler. I declare war and on turn 1 reconquer the city. So I get it back with no unrest.

Or, in MP. Allies could swap cities and then back again. Exploit. They could even go to *war* with each other for the 2 turns required to flip cities back and forth.

Obviously, cities would have to remember whom abused whom, because the unrest should come back when I rule the serfs once again. That is more complex than simply reducing or eliminating unrest when a city changes hands.

On the bright side, since cities already have *memories* for other things, maybe it wouldn't be too difficult for the concept of Liberation to be introduced.

Salve

[IthacaMike]

I think that unhappiness should be Civ based and not city based. If you pop rush or draft then your entire empire has to work off the unhappiness. Simply losing a city in war should not solve the problem.

[nationalist]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I think the concept of Liberator should be introduced. However I'm not sure how to prevent it's exploitation.

Scenario.

I have a city near a civ I am hostile to, but we are at peace. I am preparing for war. I pop rush military units till the city is ready to drop.

I gift the city to the neibour. Unrest gone since there is a new ruler. I declare war and on turn 1 reconquer the city. So I get it back with no unrest.

Or, in MP. Allies could swap cities and then back again. Exploit. They could even go to *war* with each other for the 2 turns required to flip cities back and forth.

Obviously, cities would have to remember whom abused whom, because the unrest should come back when I rule the serfs once again. That is more complex than simply reducing or eliminating unrest when a city changes hands.

On the bright side, since cities already have *memories* for other things, maybe it wouldn't be too difficult for the concept of Liberation to be introduced.

Salve

I was thinking of those scenarios that you mentioned after I posted my thoughts. I completely agree with you. The citizens should remember which civ oppressed them and react accordingly. If you starved off th former populous and replaced them with your own people, then those people shouldn't resent you for something a different AI did to citizens who no longer exist. If the computer remembered which civ was responsible for the actions, and which citizens were mistreaed, then the problem would be solved and no one could exploit the solution.

[Mr. Blaze]

yeah, i noticed the oppresion thing too... and i think they should add liberation thing, but take care not to make it exploitable... we'll see..

[rpodos]

One of the reasons I will go to war is to capture cities with GWs... thus, no razing.

I also try to take them down to 1 pop, but even then continued unrest is unbelievably annoying.

Maybe a good strategy is to save those cities for last, and then cease war immediately after capture. Then, turn on the happiness machine.

Raze everything else.

R

[Tuberski]

I agree with the pop rushing part of this thread.

However, the part about drafting I do not.

If you are there at war with the other civ, and they are drafting to defend against you, how can that NOT be your fault?

No war=No drafting.

Maybe after you take the city it should be renamed something else, but I think the unhappiness should stay....for a finite amount of time anyway.

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Tuberski
I agree with the pop rushing part of this thread.

However, the part about drafting I do not.

If you are there at war with the other civ, and they are drafting to defend against you, how can that NOT be your fault?

No war=No drafting.

Maybe after you take the city it should be renamed something else, but I think the unhappiness should stay....for a finite amount of time anyway.

My point is how can people be unhappy if they don't exist. The people who would have been affected by the draft are either workers or had starved to death. The new citizens are my own people, born after the city had been in my hands for years. The draft had nothing to do with them, yet they are unhappy about the draft. I didn't levy the draft, and they weren't effected. The former citizens were the only ones who had to suffer through the draft. Why are my people upset?

[notyoueither]

I'm sure that the original Irish who had good reason to hold a grudge against England were mostly gone when the Troubles started again. And I'm sure that most of the people who were slaves in the USA up until 1864 (?) are long gone now too. Still there is unrest in some American ethnic circles due to the injustices of 140 years ago.

My point is that groups have long memories when it comes to injustices whether real or perceived.

BTW. Flamers please keep your weapons at rest. I know very well that injustices against the Irish/Black Americans/Insert Group Name Here are more current than 140 year old history. My point is that slavery is still a part (large?) of the grievances. As is the great famine and the social conditions that caused it.

I find it strange that conquered cities never have babies of the same ethnicity as the vanquished people. I think it the designers intent to begin *assimilation* that way. But unrest is not caused by ethnicity. It is caused by the treatment of the people of that region (city). Hence I have no problem with the memory of the people being long, no matter which people they are.

I just wish they would be smart enough to give the new guy a break to see if conditions improved, instead of forcing the new guy to starve them down to the scattered remnants of once great cities, or simply burn everything and convert each conquered city to 2 slave labour units. NOW we're talking oppression!

Salve

[nationalist]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I'm sure that the original Irish who had good reason to hold a grudge against England were mostly gone when the Troubles started again. And I'm sure that most of the people who were slaves in the USA up until 1864 (?) are long gone now too. Still there is unrest in some American ethnic circles due to the injustices of 140 years ago.

My point is that groups have long memories when it comes to injustices whether real or perceived.

I find it strange that conquered cities never have babies of the same ethnicity as the vanquished people. I think it the designers intent to begin *assimilation* that way. But unrest is not caused by ethnicity. It is caused by the treatment of the people of that region (city). Hence I have no problem with the memory of the people being long, no matter which people they are.

I just wish they would be smart enough to give the new guy a break to see if conditions improved, instead of forcing the new guy to starve them down to the scattered remnants of once great cities, or simply burn everything and convert each conquered city to 2 slave labour units. NOW we're talking oppression!

Salve

I think that we misunderstand each other's view point. The scenarios that you describe don't fit with what I am thinking of.
My scenario is more like this:

The Irish government oppresses the Irish people in Dublin, and forces them to do slave labor (pop rush). The Irish people in Dublin are angry about being forced to do this and protest (unhappyness due to pop rush). The Irish people get into a war with the English. The English conquer Dublin. The Irish citizens of Dublin are still angry about the oppression forced on them by the Irish government, but they now hold the English government responsible. As a result the English starve all of the Irish in Dublin to death. A few years pass. Dublin has now been an English city for a while. It is populated with English citizens. These citizens are unhappy with the oppression forced on the Irish people by the Irish government before the conquest and are holding the English accountable for that oppression. This doesn't make sense. Why would these English citizens even care what happened in Dublin before the English took control, and why would they blame the English government for it? This is the biggest problem that I have with inherited discontent.

I like your liberator concept when it applies to ruling over conquered (liberated) foreign nationals. However, I think that the scenario that I described above is unrealistic and unfair, and should be addressed. Do you agree with what I am writing about?

[notyoueither]

nationalist. Yes I agree with you about the inherited effects of oppression. A liberator should not be blamed for the actions of a routed empire.

The first part of my post was on about a niggle with your prior post. You mentioned something to the effect that the original victims were no longer alive, so why the continued discontent? My comments about 140 year old memories of injustice were my way of saying that time and generations alone do not do away with unrest. The conditions which created the unrest have to change, and even then the sins of the past may haunt an empire. Although they should be YOUR SINS, not the sins of another empire.

So I agree with you about Liberation. At the same time I see no problem if the people have loooong memories about your own oppression of them.

Salve

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by notyoueither
nationalist. Yes I agree with you about the inherited effects of oppression. A liberator should not be blamed for the actions of a routed empire.

The Vietnamese were upset at French oppression, then Japanese oppression, then French oppression. For some reason, they did not see America as liberators, but as more of the same.

However, once they are assimiliated then this unhappiness should be reduced.

[Cookie Monster]

It is indeed very frustrating to deal with inherited discontent. I can understand the discontent related to my aggression against the subjugated peoples home country. Why must we pay for drafting discontent though?

Just a random thought. Patch 1.17f was designed to curtail the humans' tendency to pop rush yet the AI continues to run itself into the ground. These patches should be carefully playtested before released to general public.

[kailhun]

In my current 1.17 game I have captured two cities. In both cases they had wonders and I don't like to destroy wonders even if they're not very useful. In the case of Rotterdam I had 11 resistors (or whatever they're called). This is new for me. It
could in part be due to inherited unhappiness. But also to the Dutch probably have a lot more culture than I (Aggressive tech trading meant I missed almost all the wonders and concentrated on units for war, not culture buildings as I used to before 1.17). Doesn't a lead in culture for the conquered city/civ lead to more resistance?
Anyway Amsterdam had the same and they both flipped (although not at the same time). I cheated, reloaded and held Rotterdam. After Amsterdam flipped i quit and left for work (I was late as it is).
I'm now considering the following tactic: raze all cities except the ones with wonders. Don't station anyone in them but around them. When they flip, retake them and repeat. Then destroy the enemy empire completely so they won't flip anymore.

Robert