Boom/bust

[mrtwisties]

How often have you read something along the lines of, "when x died, all the people he had conquered and who were afraid of him promptly rebelled"? I reckon it'd be fun to simulate that phenomenon.

I was thinking of creating a script that did the following:

1. When you have a faction leader who is a "Victor" or "Great Victor" (or who has equivalent traits), the cities he conquered get populated with invisible "Fear of X" buildings that reduce unrest. A really impressive leader could hold half the map under his sway by sheer force of will.
2. AI faction leaders of this kind could get a bunch of other bonuses, if those bonuses encouraged them to go a-conquerin'. I'm thinking of unit training discounts, monetary rewards for winning battles, perhaps even movement bonuses, I don't know. Could the old senate missions be used to trick them into doing stuff?
3. When the faction leader dies, all of these bonuses disappear.
4. Empire-wide rebellions ensue, representing wars of succession and people who are seeking their freedom. Mostly the loss of 1 would provide for this, although it might be fun to script some war of succession armies, too.

It'd take some tweaking, but a script like this might really help to create that "boom-bust" phenomenon of ancient kingdoms. So the Sweboz might come to dominate half the north in a single generation, then contract to a rump state in their ancestral lands. And so forth. Anything would be better than the steady expansion that sometimes happens in campaigns.

Any comments or suggestions? Is it impossible, given the limit on building slots? Or could we get around that somehow as (I presume) has been done with the unique buildings?

[Malik of Sindh]

Do you have anything against AtB using this system?It sounds great,we were about too do something similar,but this idea sounds even better.I will disscus this with other Asai to barbaron members,when they are online.

[mrtwisties]

Not at all, I'd be very pleased to see the idea taken up.

I note that Konny is of the opinion that being rich might make the AI extremely aggressive. That'd be tiresome in the long term, but awesome if we made it happen for short periods of time. It'd be worth testing this and other possible triggers on a simplified map, to suss out the engine a bit.

If we can:

1. Have just the right number of "Alexandrian" faction leaders cropping up in any given generation, in a moderately random fashion;
2. Trigger aggressive behaviour on their part;
3. Help them be successful in their aggression, eg by helping them win autoresolve conflicts; and
4. Take it all away when the faction leader dies.

Then we'll have the boom/bust thing happening.

I especially like the idea of one faction (say, Rome) getting two Alexandrians in a row. You'd be holding on for dear life against a superpower for fifty years, and then suddenly their last Alexandrian would die and all of that red on the map would start to disappear!

[Malik of Sindh]

I think the rebelions/decline should happen only if the new king is incompetent,has bad traits.

[mrtwisties]

Don't forget that Alexander faced just such a set of rebellions after Phillip's death, and that Augustus had to fight a civil war after Caesar's, and yet both of these proved to be very capable men. Perhaps if the heir is already a proven victor there need be no rebellions, but an unproven heir...

[Malik of Sindh]

Yes.We will use this to make big factions like Mauryan empire,Ptolemy empire and Seleucid empire weaker.

[runes]

I think the rebelions/decline should happen only if the new king is incompetent,has bad traits.

yea, it shouldn't be an automatic thing.

perhaps not only traits. that seems a little too... i'm not sure.

maybe someone with more historical knowledge could provide some examples when this happened, and we could extract some info to use.

maybe it happens when a different family lineage is assigned as the heir?

this is an awesome idea and can become nice and in-depth

[Horst Nordfink]

I'm liking this idea. Would definitely implement this in my game if it got sorted.

[Malik of Sindh]

You'll need to wait atleast 4-6 months.This will come with AtB.

[Decimus Attius Arbiter]

Would not be nice for the Romans. I've recently recovered from a 10 year depression/holocaust as most of my cities depopulated and had squalor go through the roof. This happened when half of my family members died almost at the same time. Since Rome wasn't ruled by warlords/kings, this isn't realistic.

[Horst Nordfink]

What about Sulla and his proscription lists? That would surely have caused an awful lot of economic grief to Rome and the surrounding regions.

You're right though, it wouldn't be historically accurate for Rome to go through a crisis every time the Princeps died.

[mrtwisties]

This isn't about bringing about a crisis every time a faction leader dies, I can't imagine anything more tiresome. Well, I can, but it'd still be not that fun to play - nor, as you observe, historically accurate. It's about giving (I think realistic) public order bonuses to a mighty conqueror, enabling them to conquer still more.

Of course, when the mighty conqueror dies it becomes challenging to hold onto your conquests because you lose those bonuses.

But if you were methodically expanding your holdings (as Rome did) and not taking advantage of the conqueror's bonuses, you wouldn't face that problem.

[[EB]Demulon]

I really love this idea because of its role playing factor. My main concern is that leaders typically live well into their 60s (if not killed or plagued), which would make it a predictable patter. If you could somehow give generals more traits to make them more vulnerable to illness, then it would add unexpected challenges. I welcome the risk of preparing for a large campaign, only to have my general fall ill and die, which would thus cause chaos in some regions...