An Idea: Using governing points to prohibit unlimited expansion

[Xin Yu]

In Civ genre games it is almost always true that the more cities you put down, the more beneficial (unless your management skill is below average). Maybe this should be changed in CivIII, or we may come back to the same routine: more cities, and more cities--with the game speed slower, and slower.

Here is an idea to limit the number of cities you can build:

a) At the beginning of the game you have certain amount of governing points, and that is the maximum number of cities you can govern. Beyond that number, any city will be in disorder, which will eventually cause civil war inside your civ, reduce your population and take away some of your technology ("I'm sorry to report that the technology writing is lost in the civil war).

b) With technology growing your governing points grow as well. But it has an upper limit. Beyond that the only way to gain more points is by conquering.

c) Optional: You must spare a certain percentage of your points for resting/fitness. Or you'll have a certain chance to get ill and reduce your governing points for several turns. This percentage can be reduced when medical techs are discovered.

d) When you occupy a rival's city, you also get one governing point from him (his governing point will be reduced).

e) Optional: Only cities beyond your governing point limit can be converted by foreign diplomats.

f) Optional: You can set aside some governing points to stay with your family so that you can have children. After several turns you can delegate certain number of cities to each child. In higher forms of government type the point can go to 'party affairs' so your party members can govern the cities for you, or to 'religious affairs' so your archbishops can manage the cities for you. Each delegated city only requires a proportion of your governing point (depend on government type) to manage, and even you leave them ungoverned they will not go to disorder.

g) Optional: you can set aside some governing points for a hobby like chess, poetry, hunting, etc. This can boost your research rate of certain techs.

[The 1212 Problem]

in SMAC there is the efficincy rating which helps solve this problem. Beyond a certain point the energy does not produce any energy that could be used for labs or economy. sure they could build units, but you would be poring money down the drain for all the facilities you build.

[Xin Yu]

Thanks. I haven't played SMAC (except my 2hr experience of the demo). But I think my idea is not totally the same as SMAC's. My idea is to control the city building speed by means of the technology developing. One cannot build more than a certain number of cities until certain technologies are discovered.

[don Don]

Why should conquering give you more governing points, but peaceful expansion be limited by governing points? Why should it make any difference how the "new" city became a part of your civ?

[Xin Yu]

don Don: peaceful expansion should be limited by technology. It is historically true that any empire had its limit of governing--the remote provinces could be virtually independent. For example, the old wild west of the United States had a lot of outlaws.

Conquerring is different. It brings you benefits like slaves, treasury, and a boost of your reputation among your people, so the people are easier to govern.

[SmartFart]

I think i got your point. IMHO,that could result with race for governing points. Not to mention possibility of stealing desired technologies. Basically...i like the idea,but it sounds a little too powerfull for my taste. +1/-1 point by conquering only increase the gap between civilizations. If 2 civs already haves technology to have 10 cities,loss of 2 cities results with a gap of 4 gp and it will probably grow further.
Your idea may also be realised thru gentlemen agreement before starting a game,in multiplayer of course.
<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by SmartFart (edited December 13, 1999).]</font>

[Urban Ranger]

That's a bad idea. That just gives more incentives to people to be aggressors.

It isn't the number of cities either. It is how far away the fringe cities are from the capital.

[don Don]

Yes that's what I mean. The "Wild Wild West" wasn't as wild as you imply, nor was the East as domesticated as you imply. Just because Spain conquered territories in the Americas didn't make them easier to govern than the English colonies established through emigration. On the other hand, the government type that made English colonies easier to govern made them easier to lose through revolt.

England and France fought for centuries over territories much closer to home. While it meant a great deal to the Royal Egos and Exchequers it meant nothing to the local barons and lower classes. The English have always held their pride, despite the loss of continental possessions. More recent blows to the English pride resulted from internal politics more than from loss of colonial possessions.

The French have always held their pride… well let's not get into that here.

A case in point would be Florida. Jackson pursued indians into the swamps and showed up on the doorstep of the Spanish colonial government. They capitulated without a fight just because of distance from the capital. Such cold never have happened closer to home.

[The Joker]

I agree that something has to be done to stop the unlimited expansion from Civ2.

On the SE Models thread I have posted some ideas for this:

-Huge corruption and waste for cities far away from the capital.

-Less control over cities far away (do any of you have any ideas to how this could be done?)

-I like the concept of some sort of bureaucracy/government points. These would be a global expence on your national budget. The more bureaucracy points you have the lower the chance is for revolt, and the more control can you have over cities far away. But the more cities you have the more of these points would be required. So a large empire wouldn't just mean that the periphery cities were more or less useless, but it would be a very large expence on your national budget, forcing you to raise taxes, which could create even more unhappyness plus it could reduce your research rate. This concept is far from perfect, but an advanced version of it could be implemented in Civ3, making the game more exciting.

-The chance of splitup raised if you were a large civ.

-Being a large civ would require more units around the world. If the cost of units would be both raw materials, food, money and perhabs labour a large army could be really expensive, also on your national budget. This could cause unhappyness and less research due to raised taxes.

-CTP's State of Alert could be implemented (this is among the things I like about CTP), but better. There should be 3 levels - low, medium and high. If set on low your units would get their attack/defence rates divided by 3. This would make them practically useless. If set on medium their rates would be 2/3 of usual, and on high they would be normal. However, on high an average amount of units could cost perhabs 40-50% of your country's income, raw materials and labour! This would make that REALLY expensive, and therefor only workable in a serious war. The major downside for large civs should be, that these would be significantly slower at moving between these states of alert. If you have 100 cities the time to go from low to high could be 20-30 turns! For a small civ with 10 cities this could be reduced to 2-3 turns. This way large civs could be not only unstabile, but unflexible. Advances could reduce the time it took to move between different states of alert.

-Better AI. Small civs should make alliances with each other if they were attacked by a large one.

-Cities should grow faster in modern times. This way cities made in 1800 wouldn't be useless.

I think the government points concept here is too focused on persons. Civ3 shouldn't at all have you spending time on your family or playing chess. As no ruler can live for over 6000 years you shouldn't be the ruler of your civ as a person, but just whoever is in charge. I also think these gov/bur points should effect your core cities. Not just the periphery ones. This way it would hurt your entire empire to be too large. I also think that you should be able to have a huge empire, if you were willing to pay the cost.

I agree that advances and also SE settings (your Bureaucracy rating) should effect the number of gov points you have.

However I strongly disagree that conquest should raise your number of gov points. Not only is it historically incorrect, it would ruin the game balance. First of all, empires built on conquest is if not more unstabile then at least as unstabile as empires based on expansion. The Mongol Empire conquored half of Asia in less than 50 years, but broke down to nothing in less than 50 years after.

I think one of the major breakthroughs Civ3 should include should be that large civs were no longer neccesarily more powerful than smaller ones. If this was included Civ3 would truly take gaming to the next level.

[Xin Yu]

The Joker: You have made it clear. A civ's strength should not equal to its size. I hope in civ3 smaller but more efficiently developed civs are preferred.