Realistic Barbarian Invasions and the Collapse of Your Empire!

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

I want my game to be tricky and keep me busy all the way through, otherwise my empire will be at exponentially increased risk of collapse. Simply making the game harder all the way through isn't enough, and would only serve to kill off the human player towards the beginning, or simply make the campaign much longer.

My idea is that culture differences should fluctuate throughout the empire depending on its size and the region's importance inside said empire.

let's say you conquer Hispania, then 20 turns later you move just about all attention away from Iberia, because it's Roman now and All's Quiet on the Western Front, but then the Spaniards begin to feel like the shackles of Roman oppression are less visible to them, and their "Independent" factor begins to rise once more. This could happen many ways e.g. :

*** a rebel general spawns (random event) and is left too long spreading anti-roman sentiments, thus spawning more rebels, and eventually a formal rebellion force. Here I differ between the grey army of nobody's faction and an actual uprising of the previously defeated faction, respectively.

*** the building/development regime has left the province and the inhabitants feel neglected.

*** the region is on the frontier and culture transmission affects the populous.

...The above events can (and should) avalanche into a tidal wave effect unless stopped immediately. A single region would affect the rest of the regions in the province, and once a province is lost, the surrounding provinces begin their own destabalising processes.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You can see how this would be a great REALISTIC mechanic for a completely natural Barbarian Invasion event.
By the time the Empire grows to such a size that it seems the player cannot lose (the practical size of the historical Roman Empire around the time of Hadrian, let's say), then huge areas of the empire would be left undefended (unless every region is heavily garrisoned - which simple faction economics could keep in check), and the above events would be much more likely to occur, thus destabalising the entire empire. Even if the player can manage to settle these revolts, then the external factions outside the Empire would see this as a weakness in the Roman Empire, and be more inclined to attack en masse.

[DarthRuanek]

That sounds like a really good idea. If there were internal factors like that to represent the decline of an empire, it would be awesome. Especially if the internal factors changed some external factors.

[Arcani 4 Ever]

Sounds pretty cool. But i dont think CA will implement it.

Most likely they will add it in their future expansion The Fall of Rome DLC

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

No, they won't.
See! I can be an expert on CA's future plans too!

Providing they DO make an expansion similar to BI, the barbarians will already be invading, like in BI, so there won't be a need for my feature, as the instability of the Empire has already begun.

[arturowolf]

I remeber that i read somewhere that in rome 2 when a rebel army spawns it will try to expand beyond the province they spawn in.

[Serkelet]

This is all nice and candy, but feels too random. Why Hispanic population would rebel for no reason at all? Instead, what I'd like to see is that CA exploits deeper their new choices mechanics. For example, let's say your Empire grows big, and as such it brings new big troubles; going back to Hispania, now that it's a romanized country their population is feeling like they are being victims of classism because they are not considered Roman citizens, and so they have not the same rights. Then the event pops up and the game puts you in a political dilema: will you raise the Spanish population status as Roman, or will you leave things as they are? If you choose the first one, you would pacify Hispania, but you'd have unrest in Rome from the defenders of the Status Quo. Though if you choose to please the later ones, you could face a rebellion in Hispania!

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

This is all nice and candy, but feels too random. Why Hispanic population would rebel for no reason at all? Instead, what I'd like to see is that CA exploits deeper their new choices mechanics. For example, let's say your Empire grows big, and as such it brings new big troubles; going back to Hispania, now that it's a romanized country their population is feeling like they are being victims of classism because they are not considered Roman citizens, and so they have not the same rights. Then the event pops up and the game puts you in a political dilema: will you raise the Spanish population status as Roman, or will you leave things as they are? If you choose the first one, you would pacify Hispania, but you'd have unrest in Rome from the defenders of the Status Quo. Though if you choose to please the later ones, you could face a rebellion in Hispania!

I like this idea, that sometimes when you are given choices (like in FOTS) there isn't always a right choice, just like sometimes there isn't always a wrong one.
The Problem is that while your idea does pose a historical situation, which could eventually lead to the deRomanisation of the Roman Empire, it doesn't actually make the empire worse off. Sure, by 476CE, the Roman Empire was pretty much the same as some of the "Barbarian" nations around it, but that wasn't what made them crumble, that was a coping mechanism. We're talking about issue that the player would face throughout the campaign, which could lead to utter collapse of the player's Provincial Hegemony.

[theDaedricPrince]

Would be cool if CA can actually show how much your faction changed the world. It's not fun when you just die. There needs to be a feature that really shows how much your faction did, without saying 'YOU LOST! HAHAHAHA' whenever you lose a game.

[Evalation]

I like this idea, I think CA should look into something like this because it sounds like it could be great fun for a strategy game yet also historical.

+rep Thomas

[Drowsy]

Alternate history is what i like about Total War Games, so hell no.


Now if money is tight, taxes high, plague strikes and provinces start to domino or whatever, that's totally fine

[Smerka]

Alternate history is what i like about Total War Games, so hell no.


Now if money is tight, taxes high, plague strikes and provinces start to domino or whatever, that's totally fine

Have to agree with the above. Good thing CA won't listen to the historians.

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

Alternate history is what i like about Total War Games, so hell no.
Now if money is tight, taxes high, plague strikes and provinces start to domino or whatever, that's totally fine

what the hell happened to my post? I posted in there after Drowsy yesterday and now it's gone.
Well, firstly, it's Alternative, not alternate.
Secondly, my post has nothing to do with the historical record, despite people's ridiculous fears that anything historical about a historical game will ruin it (...and you, for one, will not be buying this game).
The OP was showing a realistic way for the player's empire to crumble, while fitting into a believable historical context. The difference is that this mechanic, were it to be employed in R2, would be ever-present, and slowly increase in its severity as your empire increases. This way, while CA has said that settlement micromanagement will be simpler in the late game, there will be greater faction management. This way you can concentrate on the parts of TW games you love most!

[Naysayer]

I think that this is a good idea but one has to be careful. The campaign won't be very fun if constantly everything is going wrong. You have to admit that it is satisfying in its own right to get the steamroller going. Maybe you could just implement things like these in higher difficulties. Instead of just giving the AI bonuses maybe you could do things differently to just make it harder for the player to keep control. That I would like.

[Honorable Poncho]

I can see this being incredibly annoying...that being said, I would like rebel factions to become more prominent this time around. If they gain enough territory/support I want them to form a new faction. Then maybe they'll gain even more support from other barbarian factions and ally with one another. Internal dissent should be seen as a window of opportunity to your enemies and supposed allies alike. This should be true for any faction and region on the map, not just yours.

[Punic Hoplite]

Perhaps instead of a happiness value, the settlements have a loyalty value. If a province is left neglected (building stuff, recruitment, ect) the loyalty falls. If a province/region whatever it is rebels, then the surrounding regions/provinces/cities may join that one rebelling city to form a 'nation', something similar to the Western/Eastern Roman Rebels, but implemented better. Surrounding regions need to join them as well, to the point that say you conquered Iberia first as Rome, and then did nothing with them for say 30 turns, one city rebels, and if the sentiment is mutual amongst other cities, they rebel and join that original rebelling city, so that you could lose all of Iberia. It would have to be an over time thing, but it would reflect the challenges of a 'world' empire.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Your idea makes it seems that a empire is doom to fail no matter what

[♠ Thomas Cochrane ♠]

I can see this being incredibly annoying...that being said, I would like rebel factions to become more prominent this time around. If they gain enough territory/support I want them to form a new faction. Then maybe they'll gain even more support from other barbarian factions and ally with one another. Internal dissent should be seen as a window of opportunity to your enemies and supposed allies alike. This should be true for any faction and region on the map, not just yours.

I am of course advocating this for high-end difficulties only. There needs to be more logical ways of making the game harder, not just beefing the AI to unrealistic levels... as CA have admitted themselves. It's unrealistic to just ask for smarter AI, because this isn't computer chess: Deep Blue couldn't beat the majority of TW players. That's a lot of work and time away for TW.

I think that this is a good idea but one has to be careful. The campaign won't be very fun if constantly everything is going wrong. You have to admit that it is satisfying in its own right to get the steamroller going. Maybe you could just implement things like these in higher difficulties. Instead of just giving the AI bonuses maybe you could do things differently to just make it harder for the player to keep control. That I would like.

Steamrolling is never fun (for me) in its own right. It's just less fatiguing to have fewer enemies to worry about. And yeah, this feature would be an annoying thing to worry about, if say, you had all your armies on the other side of the Mediterranean for another war. I, on the other hand would like to know what it's like to lose once in a while.

Your idea makes it seems that a empire is doom to fail no matter what

I did say that if you make the right decisions again and again, you won't be dealing with anything like this. But if you want to play on the hard difficulties, there'll be a time where you might find it very hard to keep your empire together.... and would find it very rewarding if you manage to do so!

[affpvzta]

That sounds like a really good idea

[Abriael]

Sounds like another Realm Divide, just more complicated.

To this I say no. I'd rather just have a decent CAI that can keep me challenged without turning the campaign into something too scripted because the CAI isn't good enough and needs help.