Intergalactic Civil War !!??

[Nitram Draw]

I think that adding Govenrment facilities a GREAT idea.
It would create valuable territory, something you would have to protect at all costs. That is missing from the game right now. Every system is as unimportant as any other. If you lose it, go take it back later, you've only lost the production and facilities. Lose your capitol and your whole empire suffers. There should be more facilities along those lines, provincial government buildings that affect the entire system, regional buildings the affect all connected systems, etc. This is one change that, on a scalce of 1 -10, would be a 20!

[dogscoff]

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I do like the idea of regional / imperial capitals, but I don't think they should be implemented as facilities.

I don't like the idea that you can just build / scrap them at will. Also, what happens when you lose your imperial capital?
Logically, your next biggest regional capital would take over that role, but the facility implmentation does not allow that.

I suggested having capitals not as facilitis but as "cities". Every planet has one, and it grows automatically according to things like population, facilities on planet, proximity to warp points.

One city in each heavily populated system would be the regional capital, and there would be an imperial capital as well.

It's all written out in more detail in my other post: posted 5th April, 12:10 on this thread.(Currently on page 5.)

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There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

[Nitram Draw]

I agree, they should not be able to be scrapped. Maybe the ability could be applied to a planet. One of your homeworld planets would be designated as the Capitol, the first planet colonized in a system would be that system capitol, etc.
You should be able to move your capitols though, with a small penalty.
Sorry about not checking back further. This is a long thread!

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 11 April 2001).]

[dogscoff]

Yeah, that's exactly how I suggested it. The first city in each system to reach a minimum capital size becomes the regional capital. Systems without a big enough city are counted as part of a nearby system.

Moving a capital (either by choice or because the old one was lost) should take several turns and have a cost in resources. It should also cause a temporary drop in happiness because there is no centre for law and order. It is during this happiness drop that you risk civil war, especially if there is no city of the minimum capital size.

The minimum sizes for imperial and regional capitals are determined by the size of the empire - that way, when a capital is destroyed and cannot be replaced quickly (because the remaining cities are all too small), happiness drops, civil war breaks out and the empire splits up.

As the empire becomes smaller, the required minimum capital size becomes smaller and smaller until it matches an existing city. When that happens a capital can be assigned and happiness would increase again. The civil war would end and the fragmentation would stop. That would answer the "how much of the empire splits off during civil war" question.

I also thought that if an empire has no capital and can't build another, it could become a protectorate / subjugated empire, and get it's law and order from the controlling empire. Those treaties are hardly ever used otherwise.

Does all this make sense to anyone else or am I too deep into it to describe it to other ppl?

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There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

[Nitram Draw]

If there is any way they can do it, I'm all for creating this type of feature. This is one thing the game seriously lacks, all the system seem to be the same to me. I don't feel the need to defend any particular system at all costs.

[dogscoff]

I agree. I think the one thing the game lacks is the impression that your empire is a living society, and not just a giant war factory.

<nostalgia>
Has anyone ever played Powermonger? It's an old old game on the amiga (it was by Bullfrog). In that game you really believed your armies were marching across a living, breathing world. There were villagers with names and houses and jobs, quietly going about their lives. I often felt guilty bringing war to such a beautiful and peaceful landscape. To start with anyway=-)
</nostalgia>

That's the kind of involvement I'd like to get from SEIV. Then I really would quit my job and play it all day.

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There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

[mac5732]

I have a question on the use of re-building regional or empire capitals. If you are allowed to tear down and rebuild them as I have read in the thread, this would mean that anytime you saw an enemy fleet approach your capitol world, you could conceivably dismantle it in order to not take chance of losing and trigging civil war or just removing it from a hot spot to a quiet area. If this is the case then it defeats the purpose of being a trigger. In my opinion, once built they should remain unless they are destroyed or captured at which time you would be able to rebuild somewhere else at a cost and over period of turns. This way you have your trigger, but also when new one is built it increases happiness therefore there is some type of balance.

Raynor, you said you see coding problems, could you be a little more specific, maybe this would give us some ideas as to what and what not to use or look at. Also in your opinion could this be made easier as part of an Expansion Pack.

just some ideas mac