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]

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.

[Tattila the Hun]

Can the fall of Paris and ensuing capitulation of the french in WWII, and the division into Vichy and occupied France be called a forming of two civs?

Why is France considered a winner in WWII? The US and the Soviets had to bail them out in every respect. They even got their own sector in former BRD.

[Dr. A. Cula]

I think splitting an empire after the capture of the capital should only happen to really huge empires.

I remember this from Civ 1, one of my first succesful games as emperor:

I was playing Earth map as Americans and decided to implement an "isolationist" policy: I occupied both N and S America, never bothered to visit th e"old" world (Europe/Asia/Africa) and kept battleships patrolling the shores, "just in case". When I built the Apollo Program I realised my only competition came from the Babylonians: they had about 2/3 of Asia and all of Africa. With such a huge empire, no wonder they launched the spaceship before me, so I decided it was time to introduce Babylon to the American "tourists" . To cut it short, 2 nukes and a minimal invasion army helped me invade Babylon and another town on the Mediterranean coast. Once I captured Babylon, the empire split, and all their cities in Africa declared independence as the Egyptian empire.

I guess my point is that huge empires like that should have a rather big chance of developing a separatist movement when the government fails to protect its citizens.

[Ijuin]

I would agree that revolutions is a good time for civs to split apart--maybe there is a 20% chance of each city other than your capital rebelling if a non-religious Civ converts to a more repressive government (and half this chance if converting to a more liberal government). Also, any distant cities that are "totally corrupt" (only one unit of commerce left) will DEFINITELY rebel. All cities that rebel during the same revolution will form a single new AI empire possessing all the tech, non-culture improvements (culture improvements are naturally destroyed except for Great Wonders, which will act like captured wonders), and garrisons they had before the rebellion.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
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.

I do have a few issues with Civil War as it was implemented in Civ2 (and I think Civ).

1. There's no way it could occur unless there was an "available" Civ for the seceding portion of the empire to turn into. This is kinda silly, in that it would more or less reek of hardcoding (e.g., If "no available Civ" then "can't have a Civil War" )

2. It was way too easy to spawn a Civil War. I mean just by taking the capital??

3. The human is really the only one that would know how to focus an attack on a capital. The AI is only so capable of mounting a decent offensive as is. Only the human would know how to juke an AI opponent using staged attacks, then annihilating the capital.

I think Civil War would be cool, but it should be triggered by a COMBINATION of events, much like culture flipping has a variety of variables. Here's some of the things I think should trigger Civil War (note that when I say "opponent", I am referring to the person attempting to cause a Civil War):

1. Capital city capture;
2. Number of terrain squares owned by the capital and number of squares owned by any other Civ;
3. Number of opponent's units in empire;
4. Number of your units in opponent's empire;
5. Overall military strength ratio between yours and opponent's empires;
6. The overall tide of the war (unit win/loss ratio, number of cities lost/won, etc.);
7. Overall power score vs. opponent;
8. Perhaps also overall power score vs. everyone;
9. Influence of the capital city (how many Wonders did it have, what was its commercial and production strengths);
10. Number of cities in your empire;
11. Government type of your empire;
12. Overall measure of contentness in your empire (i.e., happiness of people as well as other measures, like how many luxuries you have).

These are all I can think of for now. But there is absolutely no way that the capturing of a capital city alone should trigger Civil War. However, I also think it's incredibly stupid that the AI automatically gets a new capital once its old one falls.

EDIT: BTW, can you guys tell I've given Civil War a bit of thought? I enjoyed the overall idea of it in past Civ games, for sure.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by 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.

Oh there's virtually no question the war would have been over if D.C. fell. Lincoln had an enormous force in the D.C. area just to protect it from such an invasion. In fact he stationed a ton of troops in Maryland just to prevent it from seceding and surrounding D.C. with Southern sympathizers.

If his garrison in D.C. would have fallen, the North would have been all but obliterated.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by 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.

It wasn't just a matter of picking up the capital and moving it. The main point of Gettysburg even being fought was that Lee knew if he could obliterate the Union there, he could sweep back down to the south and end it, likely in D.C. If D.C. had ever fallen, it would have been a serious strategic, military, and symbolic blow to the North.

[Trifna]

I also think people beeing unhappy enough could ask for something specific. Like they could ask for less military economy and more civil economy. Or they could ask for democracy or any system, or anything else. You could of course try to calm them by giving some other stuff also.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

To both Traelin and Dr. Cula, I definitely think that we are very much in agreement.
Civil War should be about TRIGGERS (man, how many times have I said that before ). If you capture a civs capital, it shouldn't spawn an automatic CW, but if that empire is huge, with a repressive government, extreme war weariness and massive corruption, then capturing their capital would allow opportunists within their cities-especially the outlying ones-to break away from their former masters!! A small, well-ordered democracy, on the other hand, would almost NEVER break apart
Additionally, cities with a greater than 50% foreign national population should also be a major risk of breaking away if any of the other triggers are met!
I just feel that this would add a whole new element of politics and strategy to the game-certainly if the AI knows how to exploit these factors as well .
Now, if only we could convince those Firaxis guys of the value of CW before the next XP comes out .

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Trifna]

Agreed with the kangaroo.

[Homunculus]

IMHO there should be civil wars, but only when triggered (don't have many triggers to add)
regions that would have higher risk:
1-seperate areas (like on earth, French having cities in America, or Africa; a group of cities not in the same territory (within same border) as the capital)
2-far away areas (those points add up )
3-Groups of cities from now obliterated civs/in the starting region of these civs

and i think a bit of the Capital-capture leads to civ.war "demand" is because capturing the capitol currently has very low inpact on the losing Civ (they get a new capitol right away..)


just my 2 cents.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by Homunculus
IMHO there should be civil wars, but only when triggered (don't have many triggers to add)
regions that would have higher risk:
1-seperate areas (like on earth, French having cities in America, or Africa; a group of cities not in the same territory (within same border) as the capital)
2-far away areas (those points add up )
3-Groups of cities from now obliterated civs/in the starting region of these civs

and i think a bit of the Capital-capture leads to civ.war "demand" is because capturing the capitol currently has very low inpact on the losing Civ (they get a new capitol right away..)


just my 2 cents.

Nice! (for a settler - kidding )

A city that would rebel would have an impact on nearby cities that would more easily join this city.



Just thought to THIS (miam miam ):

Communications:
Maybe also we could think to some problems linked to communications... I mean imagine Romans that had such a big territory that an order could take months to get there, and people were very different since they couldn't communicate that much and get a common identity, like now with television/radio/internet and people going from a place to the other with cars! USA has a big territory but with modern technology, no problem.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Homunculus is right. I would definitely not be such a strong advocate of the Capitol-capture trigger for CW if the loss of the capital had, at least, some major negative consequences for the nation that looses it!! At the very least, it should cost a small fortune to move your palace in the same turn you lose your capitol (with the cost reduced if you have FP Small Wonder). If you can't move the capitol that turn, then you you should have to build the palace again-from scratch! Until a new capitol exists, there should be increased unhappiness, corruption and war weariness in all your other cities (which would, of course, increase the chance of CW in those cities ). Certainly not this "oh, you've just lost your capitol, well here's another one for you!!"

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Trifna]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Homunculus is right. I would definitely not be such a strong advocate of the Capitol-capture trigger for CW if the loss of the capital had, at least, some major negative consequences for the nation that looses it!! At the very least, it should cost a small fortune to move your palace in the same turn you lose your capitol (with the cost reduced if you have FP Small Wonder). If you can't move the capitol that turn, then you you should have to build the palace again-from scratch! Until a new capitol exists, there should be increased unhappiness, corruption and war weariness in all your other cities (which would, of course, increase the chance of CW in those cities ). Certainly not this "oh, you've just lost your capitol, well here's another one for you!!"

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

I do not think capitols have such an importance for a few reasons. We have to know that even if a capitol is taken, it doesn't stop from getting a temporarily capitol from where directions are given. In ancient times, maybe a little harder, but in modern times it's already planified and all. Of course it may take a little time to bring it back to work softly though (getting the people needed, etc.). The real problem is another one:
- moral of people and troops is down
- a certain disorganization may happen (the time taken to reorganize)
- centralization is less efficient for a while (time to rebuild some links between cities if needed, but also psychologically)

If USA would suddenly lose Washington DC, be sure the president and all would rapidly be reorganized. The temporary direction center may even be a plane... But it just wont have exactly the same team to work with (so reorganizing).


To get exactly the same efficiency with the new capitol, a few factors will be needed:
- time to get a reorganized administration
- officially declaring it as new capitol
- new palace a symbol of the capitol (even if it comes after the official declaration)
- little time for people to accept it

[Admiral PJ]

I see changing government like a civil war.. a revolution.
Maybe after changing government, some of your cities change to a new civ, like a civ2 civ war, they are at war with you, and have the old government.

This might be better than curent revolutions, as the revolution time can be reduced(its too long) and now you have to reconquer rebel cities.

[Trifna]

Changing government is just changing government. It's not a part that want to make secession. france, Great-Britain, USA and many others changed government. A secession happens when a part of the population wants to separate itself from the other part, it's a huge difference.