FIRAXIS: Radical Idea on Separation!

[dexters]

I'm bringing from the dead the idea of neutral cities, civil wars, and seperation! Let me say I was among the first to reject suggestion of this last year. But I've thought about it and think the XP brings a great opportunity for Firaxis to add this feature. In addition to culture abosrbtion of cities, civilizations weak in culture, in general anarchy for long periods or civilizations with cities that have been in anarchy for several turns may also have a potential to separate from the civ to become an independent state. Cities that leave a Civ Regardless of proximity, or when they leave AUTOMATICALLY be considered part of the same seperatist alliance, allowing players and AI to deal with them as a single block. These cities will retain the traits of their original Civ, and will infact be treated by the AI as the cities of that Civ it has left. The only major difference is, the player or the AI Civ no longer have direct control over these cities, and like Barbarians, these cities can launch attacks on any Civ. In essense, freelancing for themselves. And like Barbarians, these cities will NOT pose a major competitive threat in the long run, but instead are problems or opportunities that players must deal with.

Diplomacy!There will be no capitals for the seperatist Civ. Instead, players who have lost cities must win back successionist cities individually through concessions. The diplomacy (negotiations) I believe should be handled through a simple conversation style format akin to the regular diplomacy screens, with a big difference. Instead of the stately MPP, RoP, Tech trading, Luxury Trading stuff, the inferface will be simple.

For the Original Owner The diplomacy screen will simply feature 2 things. 1) Submit or we'll Invade 2) We are Willing to Listen to your grievances
For option 2, this will lead players to a separate screen for negotiations. Here the cities will ask one of many things. Moderate sums of Gold, subsidies in the form of building a specific improvement within X amount of turns or simply request more units be stationed! Given there is already a city governor script, it should be relatively easy (I believe) to use this and integrate it into diplomacy. If the city governor thinks the city needs more units, it will request military units be stationed in the city. If the governor wants to build a bank, it will request a bank be built.

For the opportunist who wants to pick off a neutral city
GOLD! A lot of it. This essentially stacks the deck in favor of a city going back to its initial owners, but leaves the door open for Civs with money to buy cities. But The cost will certainly be high enough so that even the richest civs can't buy very many cities.
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The above suggestion I believe should get around the nasty problem of having 20 or 30 of civilizations in a large game because of civil war, a major problem that led to the rejection of the civil war idea last year. It also simplifies the implementation. What do you guys think?

Note: In both culture absorbtion and city independence, there is a need for a warning system. Some kind of pop-up, or a visual indication that the population is turning away from its mother Civ. So Firaxis is not off the hook on fixing at least that part of the game, even if the larger idea of seperation is rejected.

[Imp. Montezuma]

Cool idea! But may be for Civ IV implementing...

[civman2000]

What if ALL anarchy was civil war...a few separatists immediately form and both loyalist and separatist cities have very high probabilities of flipping tot he other side. You can choose a government for the loyalists, but it is weakened.

If this does not happen, I think it would be nice to have you propose the new govt after anarchy, but the people have a certain chance of choosing a different govt...so if you want to go from democracy to despotism in 1975, good luck trying!

[Pythagoras]

XPs arent the place for really radical ideas, we should seek to improve already existing flaws b4 adding lots of new stuff.

[zulu9812]

Yes, I would definately like to see neutral cities and new states arrise as aresult of rebellion, like in CTP 2

[Ijuin]

I like this. How about, for every turn you are in Anarchy, each city other than your capital has a 1% chance of seceeding from your empire?