Civil Wars in CivIII

[Gen. Thomas Jackson]

I would like to see in Civ III civil war occuring. Most major empires at one time or another have had a civil war. this could happen if certain percenage of the citites under an empires control where in disorder. All of the city that are in disorder would form a colaition and attack the other cities. The two sides would not be able to negationate except through a outside power. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

[Urban Ranger]

Not until modern times would a splinter faction negotiate with the original country, and negotiate via a third power is even a rarer occurance.

Most historical civil wars were resolved by force: one side won by conquest and that's the end of the story.

[stodlum]

Civil wars must happen in CivIII, of course. I think it would be worth giving each civ a default rebel name.

e.g.

Americans - Confederates
English - Republicans

It just makes me laugh when the French empire splits in half, to be attacked by the Indians.

[connorkimbro]

civil wars DID occur in the original civ1, when the capital city was taken of a large empire. . it was a very realistic touch, and should be included in civIII, perhaps done a bit better though. .

[The Joker]

Civil wars should definately occur. And quite often too. I think it should be EXTREMELY hard to have a civ with more than 20 cities without having civil wars every 50 turns or so. Most often these would be smaller ones with just a few border cities rebelling (you would often just be happy giving them freedom or let them become a protectorate as the costs to win them back and surpress them would be large), but the large destructive ones should also occur, often reducing you to a smaller power. This way civs would not stay strong. The power in the world would be dynamically divided, not statically as in civ2. It should often be good to stay a smaller power untill the end game, and then begin expanding.

[Gen. Thomas Jackson]

I don't know abotu civil wars occuring about every 50 turns. Unless your country is third world that won't happen as oftern in a industrilized society. But I do aggre about the greater occurence of civil wars. I would also like to see the ability to switch side to the rebelling side and play the game from there.

[LOGO]

You should have civil wars for Reasons! not because a certain amount of turns go by, although I'm looking forward to the idea of a civil war it'll have to have a bit better system then that.

LOGO

[Pythagoras]

A good idea would be to have a civ with more than 3 or 4 cities undergoing drone riots (cant remember Civ 2 name, been smokin the SMAC) those cities than would rebel, and have a small chance of taking those either geographically nearby or near rioting. This would add lots of realism, think when you switch from monarchy to republic ussually a couple cities revolt and if you dont manage it carefully, your civ could go into a civil war, and that might give your foreign enemies a chance to strike at you while you are weak.

[Dobermann]

Uh, when you change goverment there should be a chance(15%?) of civil war during the next 2? turns

[mwaf]

a small point to stodlum on:
>It just makes me laugh when the French empire splits in half, to be attacked by the Indians.
I fully agree on this but then again if the French had conquered the Indians the most realistic civil war would be French vs Indians (meaning also that the Indians should get their own cities not any built by the French).

[stodlum]

mwaf,
That's an even better idea! When you (completely) conquer a side, a civil war would result in that side's cities forming the rebel faction in a civil war, with their ame.

[Gen. Thomas Jackson]

Switching to a less advanced form of gov't should also have repercussions. Most Americans wouldn't like the US to go communist or to have a king. I also like to idea of a conquerd naitons revolting together. They should have a higher likelyhood of revolutoin against the conqering gov't than native cities.

[This message has been edited by Gen. Thomas Jackson (edited January 04, 2000).]

[Gen. Thomas Jackson]

sorry, I double posted.
[This message has been edited by Gen. Thomas Jackson (edited January 04, 2000).]

[Dobermann]

Any change of goverments should give a chance of civil war, but a change from Republic to Democracy would not be as likely to produce civil war as a change from Fascism to Communism.

mwaf,stodlum: I agree

[The Joker]

I didn't mean that civil wars should just emerge spontaneusly every 50 turns. Just that they should be quite frequent. In modern times they shouldn't be as frequent, but before industrialization they should definately be.

Actually rulers before industrialization had very little control over their civ. Peasant revolts came with just a few years between, and it was often that the aristocracy began a civil war because they didn't like how the king ruled the country.

The peasant revolts almost always came due to food shortage. This could be because of a bad harvest. This could be a sponaneus event happening very often in a city (City X will produce only one half of it's normal food production for 2 turns), and if the people starved there could emerge 1 or 2 (pretty pathetic) units in or near the city. If the units garrisoned weren't capable of destroying these the city would fall into the hands of the peasants (a new civ would have emerged), and this could give major unhappyness in the nearby cities, perhabs causing them to revolt. So if you didn't destroy all resistance fast Machiavellan style you could end up with a large civil war.

Other causes of civil wars could be nationalism (a colony could become it's own nationalistic entity if there was not enough contact (migration and trade) between that and the motherland) causing a war for inependance. Or a once conquored enemy could suddently revolt, causing rebellions in it's previous cities.

Too high taxes could also cause civil wars, and so could unhappyness with your current SE settings. I think the people in each city should have it's own distinct "personlality", meaning that they would have a rating on 1-10 in different areas - individualism, militarism etc. Your SE settings would have to somewhat resemble your citizens' characteristics. So if you were a democracy you would need at least an individualism level of 5. And if it was 6 or 7 there would be a significant amount of corruption and waste (look at Russia). If you had a low individualism level your people wouldn't be unhappy with a nondemocratic govenment. But what if one of your cities had a much lower individualism level than the other cities and you were a democracy? That would give a lot of unhappyness and corruption in that city, and a high chance of rebellion. What if there were 10 cities next to each other which were all different from your other cities? That would be a very good reason for a civil war.

I think the problems with having a too polarised civ should be so large that you in modern times would not integrate a conquored civ, but make it a protectorate or give it it's independance back.

I also think that civil wars (and other things) would give you so much trouble being a huge civ that it would often be better being a smaller one. This would also remove some of the micromanagement.