CIVIL WAR

I guess I'm gonna have to bump this...

i like it.

Thank you, I was hoping for more replies though......

Requirements a bit complicated.

TWO REPLIES?????
You gotta be kidding me!!!

I LIKE this idea!

But it can happen to good civs too (as you stated, optional)

Not a bad idea, but some of the req's are too constrictive. For example, to avoid #1, simply don't become a star federation. For #4, you could always be at war, or just declare war if you're having "issues" at home. For #2, you could drop taxes to 0% if your economy can handle it, thereby resetting the 4 week counter, rinse and repeat. To fix #1, have an increasing chance to rebel as you go farther down that chain. For #4, it could initally work, but as your people grow weary of war, it stops becoming a deterrent. And for #2, you'd have to make it some sort of average over the last few weeks to start the talk, and it woudl take an average over time to quiet people down.

hmmmmm.....

For #1
Well, the economic bonus provided by a star federation is very attractive in the first place.

For #2
the 4 weeks countdown is reduced to 3 weeks. I mentioned that the unrest in the populace begins to accelerate as the countdown ticks to zero hour.

Reply to #4's problem: Declare war, lose your military, lose planets and later find that the other civilization is not willing to back off after your people our huddled behind you agian. But there is truth in your claim. Very good players would be able to handle this event like pudding. The losing war factor is anulled.

(BUMP)
It's starting to feel like I am talking to myself here.
Is it allright if I re-post this on some other forum?
I guess nobody reads ideas anymore.

-Scot

25% is too low for me, even in the games where i have every planet only building research and using focus for social, whilist being overexpanded, i have never seen my approval drop below 55%. This is because if i am losing money i just sell weapons and defence tech to the AI. Average 8 AI a game including minors, and by selling laser Tech I normally get atleast 100BC each from the AI, only if they are not also poor as in they have less then 300 BC. So consider I am game where i am losing -500bc a turn, i could learn the whole Laser Tech tree in one go if im using a all research buidling stratergy, and with 8 AI and 5 Laser thats 4,000 BC for one turns research on a normal tech rate. Secondly most people know going down further then 40% means you lose population, so it would be counterproductive as it would drag you further into debt.

Also i think it would just be better to have it as a percentage chance of happening, because if the player knows the rules, he will just either declare war on someone, or raise the taxes to 41% every 3 turns, which defeats the point. So that the only way this Ultra event to happen, would be a new person who does not understand the rules playing the game, and their economy sucks or B someone who wants this to happen on purpose because they are dominating the game and are bored, which would defeat the point?

If the AI is aware of this rule, it will just never go under 40% morale rate.

In conclusion this element in the gameplay would be fun, but you need more variables, which are easier to cross, and having this event depend on every single variable happening.
So instead of it just being a tick list, it should be % based where every single detail effects this with a negative or posative percentage. For example having a morale bellow 50%- when atleast one of your neighbours have a morale rate over 70% would result in a +0.01% chance of this event happening at any random turn(the percent values may need to be tweaked, but keep in mind im talking about having many many variables). A posative variable could be an Empire which is Neutral or Good would mean a -0.03% chance of this not happening

I like this idea in general, and think the 'point' system or a % chance is a good way to avoid gaming the event. These points would add up, so a player or AI could generally arrange to minimize but not completely eliminate the Civil War – if it were triggered.

Factors that increase chance of Civil War:
• Evil race (++)
• Evil leaning race (+)
• Morale where there is negative population growth (++)
• Morale where there is no population growth (+)
• Random event (+)
• Specific Evil choices (as I recall there are many that would qualify) (+)
• Good or Neutral race nearby that has influence on one or more of your planets (+) [e.g. – they are infecting your populous with subversive ideas]
• One of the top three empires in terms of power (+)

Neutral factors:
• Neutral alignment
• Average morale
• War status

Factors that decrease chance of Civil War:
• Good race (- -)
• Good leaning race (-)
• Above average morale (-)
• Good choices (-)
• Random event (-)
• High influence (-)

Good races generally have less of an advantage it seems to me, and this might even the tally a bit.

Other ideas:
• A quarter to three quarters your fleet defects, too – otherwise you have guns and they don’t, which means the civil war will be short. This also means that the results could be catastrophic if your ships start shooting at each other, and needs to be avoided at all cost.
• The new AI would have an alignment that is Good or Neutral.
• You are at war with the new faction
• The new faction will function as a major race, and will build ships, invade, etc. It will not be an isolationist minor race.

Overall this should be a Mega Event. Obviously many players will be upset since Evil is King (and Neutral not far behind), and this would completely change a game.

Note that this could work to a player’s advantage if the Drengin, Yor, or Korath suddenly start beating each other’s brains out – kind of the like the Drengin-Korath split for real!

Hydro

Very good ideas Hydro and Grime.

I agree that the original factors which can trigger the Civil War are too constricting. But the concept does provide a negative point to becoming a evil civ.

Theres no need to get all huffy just because you havent had any replies...
I like the idea in general, but theres so many different systems at work within the game, the developers would need to balance this civil war thing with them.
For example, theres lots of cheesy ways to avoid a revolting planet from joining another empire, like reducing taxes to 0 for a few turns to get 100% approval rating, or building up lots of entertainment buildings.
I'm gonna support my argument with real world happenings. As you probably know, the Senate is dominated by 8 political parties, each vying for leadership. And as you know, if another political party gets leadership above yours, you count their strengths as weaknesses instead, and their bonuses are reversed. Now, the problem with this is, if you have low approval, you will notice it during a vote for a party, as you will get less and less votes. Most military/political coups are between different political parties. For example, Saddam Hussein took leadership from the Shi-ite muslin party, because he is a Sunni muslim (maybe its the other way around). Both political parties had different views, and Saddam was a fruitcake anyway, so he took power by force.

What would be cool is this: each political party within the game has a named leader (to give them a personal side), and each one has a personality similar to the 10 races within the game. So you have 10 personalities, but 8 political parties, so this gives variety each time a leader changes. This is a bit more in depth than I can explain, but you should get the idea.
Now, heres where the civil war aspect comes in. Say for example, you are a Populist party. You have a large population, your 'good', you have a good research economy, but a completely terrible industry and are going into debt, and your military is starting to lag behind. You notice that the Industrialist party is beginning to gain favour within the senate, as is the War party. You find that as you try and combat this by trying to recover industry and your military, its too late. Youve reached a stalemate because of some reason or another. But, you still have fairly high approval.
Unfortunately, a certain political leader has other ideas, and thinks he can do better than you, so he gathers some planets (planets with very bad industry for exapmle), a few ships, and seceeds from your empire and revolts. Slowly but surely, he gains favour with planets that have poor industry, and you try and combat this with force or negotitiations (much like you do with the alien races).
And if they manage to win, you are killed and you lose.

The fantastic feeling I have about this is you have chances for political intrigue on a whole new level. You can bribe the other party leaders, you can try and alter votes, you can even assasinate them to try and upset power. What would be even BETTER if you could do this within another alien empire. Much like you can spy on them, it would be really cool if you can use monetary clout to try and destabilise their governement from within. For example, you could fund a certain parties campaign drive within the alien goverenment, assasinate other party leaders to try and get your leader to win. When that happens, you have a new leader within the alien race who owes you big time, a new ally etc etc.

This means, you could fund a pacifist leader, have him put into power, then invade that race because you know they are unlikely to fight back. But this brings backlashes with other races which I'm sure can be delved into more deeply. This sounds like something seriously worth implementing of your a modder, or can be added into an expansion pack if your the developers.

Anyone think those sound like good ideas?

Which is needed really, too many pluses for being evil or neutral at the moment, i had never played a DL game with good so far.

I guess my idea was that the ‘points’ are cumulative. Sure, a player or AI can try to game the system by reducing taxes to get a short term moral bump – BUT, the oppressive taxes for the other 99 weeks count as a negative. In a way it is like the alignment system where you steadily build up a ‘reputation’, and your citizenry reacts accordingly.

I hadn’t thought of losing an election as being a factor or a trigger. Perhaps this is because I’ve never lost an election since this is THE easiest thing to game – just cut taxes for a few weeks before the election. The stupid drones fall for it every time. This does make a certain amount of sense, and nicely makes the political aspect of the game have a certain importance.

Linking the Civil War faction to a political party also makes sense since the opposing party system seems to be based on an internal AI’s view of the world. I pay some attention since, for instance, if I have a big Warlord faction then I’d better get on the stick to build up my military – the AI is trying to tell me something (and in general it is right and I’d better pay attention). Therefore, the Civil War faction that splits would be from the next biggest political party.

And how about this: if the Civil War occurs after you lose the election then it gets your capital system! But if it starts and you have nominal control it takes an outlying swath of territory.

All of these Blue Sky ideas are fun, but I have no idea how hard it would be to enact. I wonder if the Fundamentalist event that seems to only affect Evil races could be re-engineered to a Mega Event?

Hydro

The political system isn't complex enough, I agree. The "lower your taxes" solution completely makes the 25% approval rating factor TOO CONSTRICTING. The line is uncrossable by more experianced players. If anyone has a suggestion to fix this, please voice your oppinion.

Very interesting. However, not many people let their approval drop below 25. Also loyalty factors need to play in this event. If people are very loyal, civil war would have a hard time sparking. I don't think that capitals should matter. This isn't really a board game. You could also move your capital systems somewhere else before the rebels capture the original planet. Good idea though.

Etrius

That option has been removed in the game now.

Yeah I do agree the political system, when compared to the phenominal intelligence of the AI, is very simple.
I still havent upgraded to DA yet, still using DL, so I'm not sure how the devs have changed the politics. But there are many cheese ways to avoid losing elections, etc etc.
Do we know if for example, your empire is at war and appears to be losing, then more people gain favour with either the war party (they believe this party could help them win the war) or the pacifist party (they believe the pacifists can end the war peacefully) or something along those lines? The politics system seems to be based around nothing but the popularity rating, and never situations which would make voting for a certain party a logical thing to do. The main problem with this system is that if a different party comes into power than your own, you get their 'pros' as 'cons' instead.
I think to make civil war feasible a major shakeup of the internal politics system is needed.
Also, I've noticed that the United Planets does not behave in ANY way to how the UN works (which it is based).
Why does the UP not give sanctions to warring empires etc etc like the UN does to the likes of Iran and Iraq. This system would make the AI consider things alot more deeply, or maybe the Drengin, to avoid sanctions and begin their conquests, leave the UP. This system makes communication with ALL of the races, rather than one at a time, much more engrossing as you get to learn their views on the matter at hand. That would also be really cool. The UP as it is, is nothing more than a special form of mega-event that happens every year which you can decide on...

Well i just wish that instead of once a year for a UP meeting, that it happened every 3 months or so, because at the moment most games are average 3 years, max of 5/6 and the gameplay impact of most of the UP Sanctions, or revisions is feeble .

Yes, the UP needs to have more impact and should be more frequent. Our UN dosn't keep their noses out of other people's business. Why shoudn't the UP?

The UP should have a cease fire force if combat begins to broil into a bloodbath.

i think the up should have a issue where they ask you all to pay them a amount of money to build peace fighters if they get 100 bc per race 1 to 5 fighters 2 transports 500 bc 6 transports 12 fighters 2000 bc 40 fighters 12 transports the transports invaid the world of who ever declared war on some one protected by the UP in order to become protected you must be a good race and you must also pay them a small fee so they can maintain there forces this way if a big powerful evil race attacks a good race with not many ships the UP can stand up for them and they have a small chance to build ships and prepare for war

Lovely idea!
I'm all for it!

Please add that into suggestions for v1.8 please.