How should civil wars work??

[Trifna]

I think that this is missing... it's really a major part of history: people that are not happy about the ones that're governing. It may even imply losing some cities in reality (when these cities are of a different ethnicity, conquered, treated differently, etc.). It can also mean that they wont like AT ALL a certain political regime such as monarchy or else and wont stay really calm until they have enough luxuries, food, etc.

How should this work? Civil war =

[Traelin]

Re: How should civil wars work??

Originally posted by Trifna
I think that this is missing... it's really a major part of history: people that are not happy about the ones that're governing. It may even imply losing some cities in reality (when these cities are of a different ethnicity, conquered, treated differently, etc.). It can also mean that they wont like AT ALL a certain political regime such as monarchy or else and wont stay really calm until they have enough luxuries, food, etc.

How should this work? Civil war =

I like the Civ2 notion of Civil Wars and the Civ3 notion of culture flipping, but IN ADDITION I'd like to see "neglected" cities rebel. Like if you have most of your cities with the culture producing improvements, I'd like to see the ones that don't to make an attempt to form their OWN Civ. Note that this is different than flipping to an already existent Civ.

[Verto]

I did like the civil wars in Civilization II, and wish Civ3 had something of a similar nature. A group of cities neglected or cut off from the motherland could go into open rebellion, and declare independence. Lots of interesting ways to implement such an idea.

[lateralis]

one idea might be based on predominant government and hapiness. for instance:

playing on a large map with say.. 12 civs.

5 in republic and very happy
6 in democracy and very happy. 2 of these border you

you in monarchy with no WLT?D. lets say some of your border cites go into civil disorder. They might have some mechanism where they could look at the rep/demo civs and see hapiness and decide they want to be their own democracy.

I can't really see a democratic or republic city revoltiing and wanting to be communism, but maybe a monarchy? Think of it like a charismatic leader gaining a following and promising a better future than they might get in the current civ. Just some ideas.

lateralis

[Cyclotron]

Well, the best way to start answering this question would be to decide what would cause a civil war... the effects need to be in proportion to the causes.

Possible causes:
- Revolution (government change)
- Very high war weariness
- Very high unhappiness (lots of pop rushing, drafting, overcrowding, etc.)

Anything else?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hey Cyclotron,

First up, as I've said in the other CW thread, I believe that there should be "Trigger Factors" for Civil War-i.e. things which might cause a civil war, but only if other conditions are right.
The ones you've mentioned above I agree with-others should include the obvious capital capture, low culture (less than .5x the average), high corruption (more than 0.5x the average), a large, sudden change in corruption or happiness (eg. loss of a Wonder through war or becoming obsolete), civil disorder, a city that has more than half the population as foreign nationals or a neighbouring city breaking away.
If the trigger condition is met, then the actual chance of a city breaking away is based on it's distance from the capital; the garrison size; number of foreign nationals and/or resistors; corruption, culture and happiness levels; government type. As mentioned above, if one city breaks away, then the neighbouring city should have to do the same, and so on.

The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
The ones you've mentioned above I agree with-others should include the obvious capital capture,

I know this is how it is in Civ2, but I can't honestly see why it should be this way. A civ doesn't split apart because its capital is captured in wartime. Besides, if you can capture a civ's capital, they are already losing the war and there is no reason to further penalize them by splitting in two.

low culture (less than .5x the average),

I think culture flips are supposed to represent this kind of cultural rebellion... I'm not sure we need civil war too.

high corruption (more than 0.5x the average),

That's an interesting idea... cities with lots of corruption might break away.

a large, sudden change in corruption or happiness (eg. loss of a Wonder through war or becoming obsolete), civil disorder, a city that has more than half the population as foreign nationals or a neighbouring city breaking away.

That all seems like it is already represented by flipping, wonder obsolescence, or other gameplay mechanics already in the game.

These are good ideas, but you might want to consider the gameplay impact of having civil war snowball on top of these other, already significant effects.

Good deal.

[TacticalGrace]

Dare I say that CTP had this right?

If you left a city rioting for long enough then they would start a revolution and form their own civ. I think they implemented it as barbarians.

There were occasions when this would happen to a group of cities which was very dramatic, though I think it would piss off a lot of players if this did happen even more than cultural reversion does now in civ3.

[aahz_capone]

I love the culture flipping in civ3, but I miss civil war. I would like to be able to capture an enemy capitol of a huge empire and re-instal a dead civ: all the dead civ's cities reveret to original civ.

Ofcourse I would like to see civ3 more complicated in many ways so what am I talking about?

[Traelin]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
I know this is how it is in Civ2, but I can't honestly see why it should be this way. A civ doesn't split apart because its capital is captured in wartime. Besides, if you can capture a civ's capital, they are already losing the war and there is no reason to further penalize them by splitting in two.

You're right, a Civ doesn't *necessarily* split apart if its capital is captured in wartime. But usually the war is over if the capital is captured. If D.C. had ever been captured by the South in the Civil War, the war would have been all but over, and two countries would have successfully been created.

[Cyclotron]

Traelin: We are in agreement that capturing a capital should be important, I just don't think a civil war is an appropriate or balanced way to make it important.

TG: CTP had an interesting idea, but I was thinking civil war in terms of multiple cities, rather than one city. If each southern state had broken off from the US as its own seperate country, they wouldn't have lasted long at all... civil war seems like something that should involve multiple cities.

[vmxa1]

Well Britian set fire to the capitol and it did not cause a collapse. I doubt the civil war would have end as you suggest. The leaders would relocate back to NY and the original capitol and carried on. Since the North had a big edge in industry the out come was never in doubt.

[aahz_capone]

I think the south would have to go all the way to philidelphia to end the civil war. The US gov would have just move their capital 'de facto' there.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Hi Cyclotron,

I think the big issue with the ideas I've put forward is that none of them are a guarantee of civil war-they are all just triggers. Once the trigger is tripped, then the city it effects checks to break away. If your empire is in decent condition, generally, then the loss of your Capital shouldn't have any effect. If it's in tatters, then losing your Capital is just going to make things worse (in that I agree with you), but lets face it-by that time the empire in question is probably all but ready to throw in the towel anyway-the splitting of the nation, in such a case, might represent a bunch of dissidents who, wanting to maintain their sovereignty, have broken away in order to sign a peace treaty with the invaders!
As for the issue of low culture, this is somewhat different. Rather than joining an existing civ because it has better culture than the parent civ, the city tries to break away because, compared to the rest of the civ, it's own culture is horribly low!! They feel neglected and unappreciated. As a historical example Northern Scotland, during the 17th century, felt that it was bearing a heavy financial burden from the Union with England, compared to Southern Scotland, but was not receiving any of the benefits. Thus they rose up and rebelled (The Jacobite Rebellion!)
Anyway, that's just how I see it. Certainly some sort of CW model should be considered by Firaxis-they can always come here for ideas .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[The Puny Celt]

I think it would be good to have civil wars in the game, but I'd keep it simple. The only trigger would be when you change govt type - and there are plenty of historical examples where a change in the type of govt has caused a civil war, eg the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, Cromwell and the English Civil War.

Towns/cities without certain infrastructure, and/or a set percentage of unhappy civilians, would break away to form a new nation. So, instead of simply researching The Republic then changing to that govt type, you would first need to ensure all your cities were in order with the right infrastructure, etc. Just some ideas: if you changed to Monarchy, all the cities would need temples or risk losing them in civil war; if you changed to Republic, all would need markets; change to Communism, all cities need police stations; change to Democracy, all cities need courthouses.