[Freeciv-Dev] Re: comments on ics solutions (civil wars)

[Patrice LaFlamme <ewd@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 02:21:36PM -0300 or thereabouts, Martin Olveyra wrote:
> Another suggestion:
> Depending on the type of government, there could be a possibility that, with
> the increase of travel distance of cities from the capital, decreases the
> control you have over those cities, not only corruption. That is, there will 
> be
> an increased possibility of a civil war on the far cities, so they change 
> their
> band or creates a new one. It is more realistic (sorry!) because always the 
> big
> empires have colapsed with time (Roman Empire, Alexander the Great Empire), 
> and
> its easy to implement, because the code for civil war exists in Freeciv.
> This suggestion is more natural (after all, horizontal expansion in early
> history is as natural as vertical expansion nowadays), and gives more dinamism
> to the play, because, as some nations are destroyed, other new appears. When 
> all
> the map is colonized, then it is time to 2 possibilities: conquer other 
> nations
> and expand under an advanced government [so the possibility of civil war is 
> very
> small, but always exists, i.e communism, fascism (if it would exist in
> Freeciv)] or to really expand vertically (for example, democracy).

Interesting suggestion. In Call to Power, this can happen: when your empire size
increases beyond a certain government-dependant limit, you get more unhappiness.

Also, if a city's happiness falls below 60% (it probably has been rioting  - aka
Civil Disorder - for a few turns already), it revolts and becomes independant 
(owned
by the Barbarians).

So this is an interesting solution, but I think that under current 
rules/models, this
probably won't be well received. In Freeciv/civ1/civ2, unhappiness is either 0 
or 1
(meaning, either your citizen is content/happy or unhappy). In CtP however, you
can have more incremental effects (like a city only 10 squares away from 
capital will
only produce 0.2 unhappiness, for example - I can't remember precise numbers).

So varying factors produce varying unhappiness effects, depending on their 
gravity
(which in Freeciv is only possible by having the cause produce > 1 unhappiness 
and this
probably irks many people that a military unit that's away from its city will 
cause
as much unhappiness as founding one city above your limit, etc..).

One large part of the problem I think is that the current models are too flawed 
(I think
people commented on that alread), but trying to patch them up is flawed too. 
Why not
say, for Freeciv 2, rethink everything?

I'll throw around more ideas about this when I'll have time to think about it :)

Patrix.

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