 |
| |
|
|
Cabbagemeister
|
|
Remember how back in Civ 2 there would be secessions and civil wars? You would be conquering another civilization, and all of a sudden part of it would break off and form a new civilization. That was so cool! I was very disappointed when they dropped the concept from Civ 3.
Of course, I can see why they dropped it—it was poorly implemented. IIRC, A civil war would happen only when a civ lost its capital. This worked badly, since 1) it meant that a civ would fragment when it was being attacked and in a desperate situation, which seems unrealistic (where’s the nationalistic fervor?), and 2) it meant that the human player never had to deal with it, since no decent player will lose his capitol to an AI unless the rest of his empire is gone as well.
But is there not a way to bring the concept back, better than ever? It seems to me that the concept of “Civics” provides a perfect opportunity to do this. Consider:
Changing the way you run your empire should have a cost associated with it, otherwise people can just change back and forth willy-nilly to get advantages in some situation. In previous Civs, changing your government required lots of turns of anarchy. That’s okay for a government, which might change twice during a game, but it’s a big cost considering the number of Civics that will probably be changed around in a given game of Civ4. SMAC had SE, and they used money as the change-cost, but the cost of changing your SE options was very low. It only costs 15 energy credits to switch to a Cybernetic Society? Why would I ever turn that down? For balance, Civ4 should fall somewhere between these extremes.
So what if the “cost” of changing your civics was that there would be a small chance for a few of your cities to declare independence and attempt to secede? So maybe Southern Greece says, We don’t approve of this “State-owned Property” idea, so we’re going to form our own nation. Wouldn’t that be cool? I can see this chance being affected in several ways:
1) It’s more likely to occur in large / geographically non-coherent empires. So it wouldn’t happen in the early game (when it would be a disaster), but if you have colonies on other continents, they could well decide to break off.
2) It’s less likely to happen in cities/empires with high culture. If the outer regions of your empire embrace their cultural identity, why would they break off?
3) It’s more likely to happen for certain “controversial” civics. I can’t see anyone revolting over a move to Universal Sufferage, but a change to Emancipation, or a change away from Democracy, could easily provoke secession.
If part of your empire attempts to break off, you have two options. 1) declare war and reconquer them. 2) Let them go. Why would you ever let them go? Well, if you did, they would be independent, but they would be very grateful and would become really super friendly to you, and you could immediately negotiate extremely beneficial deals for any resources you might have lost when they left. Plus, you wouldn’t have to deal with corrupt, remote, hard-to-defend cities that suck away your resources. Think of what happened with the British Empire.
There would be two terrific benefits to this idea. First, it would prevent the typical Civ3 endgame situation where four huge civs dominate the two continents of the world. Boooring. Second, it would greatly increase the realism of the game. How many times in history has there been a civil war tied to a change in policy? A LOT. The British and other European colonial empires broke up arguably because those countries moved away from Colonialism (I don’t know if Colonialism is a Civic, but it could be). The Confederacy left the USA because of Emancipation. Russia and China both fought civil wars when they moved to State-Owned Property. Western Rome broke away gradually as Rome moved away from a Republic (didn’t they? Or am I making that up?). The US revolution doesn’t fit the mold exactly (the US was not resisting a Civics change), but it helps underscore the need for secessions in a game like this.
The only downside I can see is that I don’t know if the game will be able to handle a new Civ being added midway through an epic game.
Just throwing this out there. Comments? Ideas? Criticisms?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Cabbagemeister
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by curtsibling
A barb-controlled faction, borne from a few cities (like in CTP) was a good idea...
 |
Yeah, but I don't think that would work in this case, because you can't negotiate with the barbs. You would HAVE to go to war to get those cities back, and it seems like it would become an un-fun element of the game.
quote:
Originally posted by Solver
A potential problem... this would damage the AI more than the human player, probably. But, I don't like when there are some things that only happen to the human player. I prefer a more equal playing ground.
I'd settle for a more simple thing with certain cities revolting and thus joining other civs, like in SMAC. Can be a problem if a big and important city defects to a civ which you hate, but which you're not at war with. |
I would think humans would be more likely to have oversized, sprawling civs, and thus would be better candidates to be hit by a secession. Of course, it would also limit KAIs, which tend to be the big challenges for a human in the end-game. But maybe the end-game would be even more interesting because it wouldn't be "Big human vs KAI," but "Mid-sized human vs mid-sized AI #1 vs Mid-sized AI #2 vs Mid-sized AI #3...."
Having your revolting cities join other civs is a neat idea, but IMO less historically realistic. Now, if there was something like, they would join another civ that had the civic your civ just abandoned and had similar religions, then maybe it could work. But then we're getting into culture-flipping-esque things that lots of people dislike
I never had that happen to me in SMAC...maybe I didn't play the game enough. Under what circumstances did it happen?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Cabbagemeister
|
|
Also, the chance for a secession to occur could easily depend on your difficulty level. So on Regent the AIs suffer the same chance of secession you do, and maybe (as Solver says) they don't handle it well. But on Sid the AIs can grow and grow, and you're limited by those rebellious outer provinces that don't like your empire enough to stay there.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The_Aussie_Lurker
|
|
Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
May 2001
time: 05:22
|
|
I like the idea of tying Secession to changing your civics options, with perhaps the base chance depending on how much your new civics options differ from your current civ traits.
Also, if national happiness or health fall below a certain threshold, then this should also give a potential chance for secession. Losing your capital should raise the possibility of secession, but only for a sprawling and/or poorly run empire. Also starting unpopular wars or signing unpopular peace (as well as letting wars run for TOO long) should have a chance of sparking secessionism as well. Lastly, it should be possible for a foreign power to try and use his intelligence service to spark a secession.
The chance of a city seceeding would depend on its distance from the capital, the number of foreign citizens/non-believers, the size of your garrison, the city's happiness, health and culture level, and its degree of war weariness. Also, proximity to another seceeding city should increase the chance as well.
Of course secession doesn't mean civil war-if you LET these cities go voluntarily, then you may gain a very valuable ally-or even a nation with protectorate/vassal status. My point is that secession-even if badly handled-need not be a complete disaster!
Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Vince278
|
|
Moot.
(unless we are doing a Civ 5 wishlist or discussing the possibility of modding with the SDK)
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Fosse
|
|
U.S.A.
Mar 2002
time: 23:22
|
|
I love the civics based secession idea. Adding religion into the mix might make sense too. Just changing your relgion over night seems like the sort of thing that might ruffle a few feathers, no?
I think that letting it only impact the most geographically sprawling civs is a nice touch, since for most of history being gigantic was a good way to get split up easily.
That would mean that it could happen to the biggest kids on the block, or the civs who have been cut in half and were about to die anyway. The kids in the middle of the road would be able to change civics all day long.
If Firaxis announced that they were delaying the game until 2006 to implement an idea like this I'd jump for joy. I'll play the game for years... so I want good civil wars!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Tomasz
|
|
It would be also very interesting, at least for me, if you could start as rebelling minority and face the struggles any new nation has to face. Afterall, Civ 4 is meant to have an option were you start in any era you want, so maybe you could start as a new nation that just separated from a bigger one.
Tomasz
Last edited by Tomasz on 27-05-2005 at 22:29
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:22.
Apolyton Time is 00:22. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
26-05-2005 20:22
!
|