Openciv3 - Failture of the State

[heardie]

sorry about how messy this is korn469 did it in word...

Failure of the State

by

korn469

 

The ideas presented here are my ideas for how we should model the decay of a civilization…

Civil Wars: civil wars happen when a group of cities change their allegiance. Listed below are types and causes of civil wars. Though civil wars could happen anytime the chance for a civil war would increase greatly if a civ lost its capital.

[*]Break-away republics: this type of civil war happens when a group of cities with a similar culture forms a new civ. The effects of this are local to those cities with a similar culture. This process should happen over a very short amount of time, between one and three turns. All units supported by the break-away republics would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were at the time, and all units supported by the break-away republic inside of their territory would automatically defect to them. All units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.
[*]Colonial Wars: this type of civil war happens when a group of colonies form a new civ. The effects of this are local to the colonies. This process should happen over an extended period of time, with some of the colonies revolting and then as time passes other colonies join them. All units supported by the colonies would automatically defect to them regardless of where they were. Units inside of their territory would have a chance of defecting to the rebels if they were supported from other colonies that didn’t declare independence. Units supported from normal cities would not have a chance to defect to the colonies even if they were inside of colonial territory.
[*]Defections: this type of civil war happen when a city, or group of cities (or colonies) switch allegiance to another civ. This would happen if the cities had a similar culture, or similar social engineering settings, or those cities had a very low nationalism. Also a factor would be the ratio of two civs power and wealth, poor weak cities would be more likely to defect to a strong wealthy civ. This would happen in one turn and would be local to just the cities most like the civ they are defecting to. All units supported by the defectors inside of their territory would automatically switch allegiances to them. Units supported by the defectors, but that were inside of the original civs territory would not switch allegiances, and units outside of both the rebels and the original civs territory would have a chance of defecting to the rebels. All other units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a chance of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.
[*]Sessionist States: this type of civil war happens when a group of cites with similar ideal settings would declare their independence. There would have to be a great deal of difference between their ideal settings and the rest of the civ’s ideal setting for them to just declare a civil war. However after the capital fell, they would have a great chance of defecting. All of this would happen fairly quickly with all of the cities that are going to defect, defecting over a short period of turns, say less than five. All of this would be localized to the cities with the similar ideal settings. All units supported by the rebels inside of their territory would automatically switch allegiances to them. All units supported by the rebels outside of their territory would have a chance of joining them. All other units inside of their territory (only from the civ they are breaking away from, not units from other civs) would have a small chance (maybe 25%)of defecting to them, regardless of where they were supported from. The only exception would be the units supported from the capital.[/list]




Coups: coups happen when your own military units turn against you. Coups are not always violent, and they usually happen fairly quickly, unlike a civil war which can drag on for an extended amount of time. Cities never switch allegiances during a successful coup, but during a less successful coup there might be a few break away cities.




[*]Ambitious Generals: An ambitious general is when a high morale command unit decides to topple the government. This is very likely to happen where the government isn’t very effective and the people are unhappy and unproductive, the worse the civ is doing the more likely a general is to seize control. Also a better general will be more likely to lead a coup, so if a command unit is green morale they will be less likely to lead a coup than a command unit that has elite morale. All units attached to the command unit will turn against you, the command unit also can effect all of the other command units around it. When a command unit decides to launch a coup, all of the command units close to it does a loyalty check. Basically this should work like psi combat in SMAC on a 1:1 attack defense ratio with no modifiers (except maybe something like polymorphic encryption could act as trance and high morale could act like empath song). If a command unit turns then other command units near it have a chance of turning but the loyalty check is made based on the coup leaders morale. Also if the command unit that launches the coup is based in the capital, the coup has a larger effective radius on recruiting other generals. If the coup manages to capture your king unit then there would be a greater chance of the coup succeeding. The results of this would be one of two things. Either part of your military forces would be hostile towards you (counts as barbarian units) and you would subdue them or the coup would take over. If the coup was successful, then for a few turns the AI would run your cities and then you would play on representing the coup leaders, with the command unit that led the coup becoming your king unit. If the coup is not successful but the renegade general does take over your civ then it is like you have been overran by barbarians.
[*]Failed State: If at anytime you lose half of your civs power bar in less than ten turns there would be a great chance of your entire military structure revolting against you. The less time it took for your power bar to go down the greater the chance of the military replacing your government with a new one. This would happen in one turn and when it happened it would always be successful, but it wouldn’t always happen. Once again the AI would control your civ for a few turn, change social engineering setting and production to what it thought was acceptable. Then after a few (between 3-10) turns you would be in control of your civ again.
[*]Hard Liners: Would work in the same manner as an ambitious general, except it would only happen after you change social engineering settings. The more radical the social engineering changes the greater the chance of a coup. The longer you kept a social engineering setting the greater the chance of a coup. If the coup was successful, then not only would the AI take over for a few turns but it would change the social engineering back to what it was originally and the player couldn’t change it for 25 turns. If the coup is not successful but the renegade general does take over your civ then it is like you have been overran by barbarians.
[*]Rouge Military Units: units should require money for support, and when disbanding a unit it should cost a small amount of money to do so. When military units are not paid then there is a great chance that they will turn into rogue units that act basically like barbarian units. If rogue military units overcome your entire civ, it would be like barbarians overran it and you would not get a second chance.[/list]




Popular Uprisings: This is when the people turn against you. Usually not as quick or as organized as a coup or a civil war, this represents the civil strife that constantly tears at your empire.





[*]Peasant Revolts: this is when unhappy citizens try to seize control of a city. This would happen spontaneously and bad conditions would encourage it. If a peasant revolt happened a number of peasant units would appear in the city and they would fight the military garrison. If the Garrison won the battle the population would go down by one. The size of the peasant army would be based on the size of the city. If the city fell to the peasants it would count as a barbarian city.
[*]Resistance movement: This is when a city, or a group of cities actively support a guerrilla war against your civ. This would only happen spontaneously with unhappy occupied territories, or if your reputation dropped to dangerously low levels with your people. Cities that support the resistance would have a chance of partisans appearing nearby, and the partisans would have an increased chance of carrying out guerilla activity against the city. This could tie up a large number of military units trying to combat the guerrillas.
[*]Revolution: a revolution would occur when great changes tug at your empire, especially if your entire civ had a different ideal setting than what you currently had. It would basically have the same effect as a failed state, except it would not always be successful when it occurred. After a revolution you would not be able to change your social engineering setting for 25 turns.
[*]Student Demonstrations: this would occur in more advanced civs, and would basically be peaceful riots. All production in the city would be cut in half because of student demonstrations. Students would take to the streets in support of a cause, whether it was to end slavery in your civ, or to disband your nuclear arsenal. Only cities with a university would experience student riots. Student demonstrations would end when you appeased the students. If one city had a student demonstration they would quickly spread to all of the other cities with universities. Students would only de4monstrate over socially acceptable causes. Military units would no longer cause a set number of drones, but instead military units outside of your civ could trigger student demonstrations. The more peaceful and democratic your civ is the more likely students will demonstrate. Some causes would be, slavery, war, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, a more democratic form government (ie they want you to change your SE setting), greater education spending, greater health spending, starving cities ect. The students would be your civs conscious. Though marshal law could temporarily end student demonstrations this would hurt your civ's reputations and could lead to resistance movements forming.[/list]

[Lord God Jinnai]

Hey this is a great list! I think we could use in clash when we get a better revolutions model.

Anyway one thing to add to this, is that any successful attempt for any of these types of failed states would result in other ones happening (the exception being coup'de'tah (the Dominoe Effect). Also these are not nessarily independant opf each other, ie at the same time as a military takeover might happen, splitering make also happen with colonies, FE.

[Guildmaster]

One question I've always asked is this: Who exactly is the player?
Am I the actual king/president/etc in charge and if so why do I live for 6000 years and then retire?
Am I the dynasty of my family?
Am I an omniscent being overlooking my pet civ, and if so why doesn't the course of my empire change when one king dies and another succeeds him?

It's difficult to have any kind of accurate political fracture without the "passing of the torch" if you will, to a new leader for the same nation. The new leader brings new opinions, new ideas, etc.

I propose two different playing styles optional to the player at the beginning of the game:

A) For a short intense game you are one individual and you live for one lifetime. When you die, your game is over. So much can be accomplished in one lifetime, look at how Nebuchadnezzar and Hammurabi each built up Babylon in their own way. With this option, you may even outlive your empire, perhaps to rise elsewhere and liberate it from the enemy that destroyed you!

B) For marathon players, you are an immortal string-puller. Much like earlier Civ games, except sometimes emperor Caligula doesn't do things that are very constructive. You can hire assassins to oust leaders you don't like or promote laders you do like.

C) For traditionalists you are the eyes and ears of everything in your empire and you live as long as it does just like boring old Civ2.

Use some imagination here? Anyway the point I like to get at is I don't see why the game has to end just because you country does. In Civ2 you get partisans when you enemy takes one of your cities. Well how about leading those partisans in a true guerilla war long after your rule has ended?

[Guildmaster]

I also think it's too hard for new nations to be born

[amjayee]

I think we were thinking aome time ago, that the player would represent the government of the nation, which is in the rule at the moment.

[Guildmaster]

So if the government is overthrown, is the game over for that player? Or does his regime remain as an under-power, perhaps as a guerilla leader? I always thought it might be interesting to be the leader of a guerilla movement trying to take over the same civilization you built...

Or would you then represent the new government?

[The Joker]

I think it would be up to the player. He would decide which part of the revolution he would support, and would then have to fit his policy to the wants of the classes he is supported by.

------------------
"It is only when we have lost everything
that we are free to do anything."
- Fight Club

[amjayee]

If your people rebel, you can choose to go to their side, or continue with the old government. Rebellion doesn't happen as quickly as in civ2, with half of your empire suddenly claiming independence. Rebellion is always preceded by a large amount of rioting and unhappiness, and the rebellion is handled as a war of some kind; the rebels need to actually conquer the empire.

If you lose this war, and the other side controls all of your former empire, the player could continue the game in exile, or in charge of a guerrilla faction, or go to their former allies to aid re-conquering the empire. He could hire mercenaries to fight for him, though this would require money, which you would need to find somewhere. Also you could be in charge of one of the regions in the empire, and this way try to gain control of all of the empire. Sometimes it might be possible that only the government type changes, but the rebellion causes much damage to your empire, and you have a government type that you might not have wanted.

Also player could himself start a revolution. In this case, he would need to fight the former government, instead of just changing it and getting a small period of anarchy. Of course this depends on the government types that are going to be changed. How much support each type of government has, is decided based on several factors. Each class usually supports one of the rival factions, though in some cases some class might be split in two groups supporting the opposite factions. I think having the loyalty of the army would be crucial for success, though sometimes the other side might win, too. Possibilities are countless, but we must think hard what to implement and how.