The think with civil wars is that they can be very annoying. I did not enjoy the rebellion mechanic in the more recent Total War games, because it's simply inevitable once certain cities get beyond a particular size that you will lose and have to reconquer them.

Wintersong: NERVE STAPLE THEM ALL!

On the subject of Koonan, I have another wrench to throw into the works.  Temporary loyalty might be bought with gifts, or with (Three Kingdoms) MORE RESPONSIBILITY.  Yes, you can have Koonan loyal now knowing that he's going to ask for more next year.  Ooh, decisions - big rebellion now, or larger rebellion later.

Colonization can be adapted for this.  You produce rebel 'heroes', who produce unhappiness in your towns.  When the rebellion hits, towns with more than 50% disloyalty join the new faction, and rebel heroes join the new faction.  Of course you can execute them, for a BIG increase in unhappiness, or imprison them, for a slow unhappiness 'leak'.  OR you can start fixing the problems, and maybe that rebel voice offers to join you (or move on to your neighbor's kingdom).  If we have espionage heroes capable of hiding their presence and/or inciting revolt, that melds almost seamlessly into this.

The thing about revolutions is the vast majority in human history haven’t been successful. Typically a lot of criteria have to be in place for a rebellion to be successful otherwise a government like several games mentioned here end up having to deal with an annoying but not necessarily dangerous revolt. The change sought by rebels is more often achieved by peaceful influence on the government with some sporadic “radicals” causing types of troubles. If Stardock does include a rebellion type sub-program in Elementals I hope it just isn’t at random like a lot of games out there were no matter how much you do or plan rebellions are inevitable and nothing more than annoying. The rebellion system I would like to see in Elementals would range from full scale regional revolt (United States and Great Britain) to peaceful manipulation / negotiation (India and Great Britain) or a mix of the two (like in South Africa with Nelson Mandela). 

I'm all for a dynamic and complex revolution system.

I would enjoy a full fleshed revolution system that could be used by sneaky channelers to make more "interesting" the life of opposing channelers. Spies, assassins, rebels,... The more different kind of "battlefields", the better.

I'd prefer if it was a simple system of maintaining levels of health/taxation/population via taxes and buildings. Anything more complicated would annoy me. If it is to be complicated than give the option to turn it off. This is Elemental: war of magic and not elemental: sim fantasy kingdom

Agreed 

Woa. You're making me understand my irrational pre-alpha obssession better. It started because of the TBS-RPG 'fusion' thing. But I have to admit that I've so far had an unconscious desire to see Stardock produce a 4/5X 'thing' that builds a bridge between the Civ/game and Sim/toy modes. I'm a little afraid that such an idea might actively offend the devs, but there it is.

I've griped often already about not wanting Elemental to expect me to watch live animation and respond with strong mouse skills. But I haven't admitted that SimEarth and SimCity were great loves of mine before I ever saw Civ 1. I still wish that (an independent) Will Wright had built new SimEarth versions, and I've played lots with SimCity over a few versions (3000 is the last one I have a disc for).

What has made me lean more to the Civ/game side all along is that those games, no matter how bad I thought a particular one might be, all did a much better job of providing or helping me make up a story to go along with all my clicking than any Sim/toy ever has. It's almost like comparing a big box of basic Legos to a specific Lego model kit, except that's a bit backwards for me because I never built a model more than once and constantly used my entire collection to build parts an ongoing game of make-believe. But I digress...

Options are a burden for devs and a delight for many (most?) players. I want the core mechanics to enable what amounts to a full minigame for rebellions and a UI that can let players choose at least 3 levels of complexity for interacting with those mechanics. The simplest should resemble what delad asks, which is roughly how GC2 works today.

Well, for a while now I've kind of thought that a good 4/5X game maybe should be able to start with a 'minigame' that sets options for full game, at least when players are new to the game. Even using something as simple as a Windows wizard-like thing to step through a combo of backstory and map options could be a useful alternative to the traditional game settings topic in manuals and tutorials.

@GW Swicord - We are of similar mind in regards to the issues and desires you addressed in your last post.

@Stowe - yes several of us and I like the EU:R system very much despite it short comings. There is a thread about EU on the forums. You should check it out.

Well, I guess when talking about revolutions and rebellions it is first important to distinguish between the different types, then how to implement them.

First (and most common) is peasant rebellions.  A group of poor people who just can't take any more oppression/taxation decide to rise up and kill the local authority figures.  These generally don't have much of a goal or organization, and historically were almost always stamped out.  These should probably be represented by small armies of poorly equipped and untrained peasants popping up in the area experiencing the revolt, with a major focus on plundering the area rather than engaging in combat.

Second would be "nationalist" rebellions.  A rebellion of this nature in this time period would look kind of like the revolt of the flemish towns against their French speaking nobility, or the revolt of the Swiss Cantons against their Austrian overlords.  These rebellions tended to have greater focus and better organization, with correspondingly greater success (the Flemish revolt ultimately ended in defeat, however not before they crushed a French army sent to subdue them, and maintained their de facto independence for a number of years).  Cities of a different nationality/language/ethnicity than that of their overlords should occasionally experience this if they are not kept happy or heavily garrisoned (or both).  Probably the best representation of this would be with a new minor faction forming around the extent of the rebellion and the existing (too small) garrison massacred or run out of the town or towns in rebellion.

Third would be inter-vassal civil war.  As sometimes happened in a system where loyalties were from overlord to vassal rather than to nation-state, occasional vassals would seek some excuse to shift their allegiance.  Such examples of this include the the constantly changing set of allegiances in the Holy Roman Empire or the shifting back and forth of major French nobility during the Hundred Years War in France (Burgundy, Navarresse lands in Normandy, Brittany, ect).  This would probably be best represented by certain espionage and diplomatic options that would link two kingdoms dynastically, and then create events where they would try to shift the loyalties of certain "governors" or "lords" in charge of cities in that kingdom to their own.

Next would be partly linked to #3 above, and that would be the event of a pretender to the throne.  Such conflicts were actually fairly common in many nations, however full blown civil war resulted in Rome and Byzantium on a regular basis because of this problem.  In this case the loyalty of the characters in charge of your nation would have to be taken into account as well as their potential for taking power (the strength of their city, the size of their army, the amount of money that they have personally ect), and then a minor (or several minor) nations would form out of your nation, with only one able to survive from the resulting chaos.

After pretenders to the throne I would put religious turmoil.  This could range from minor heresies like those that sprouted up in Southern France and England and would require troops to suppress (easily represented by some minor unrest that is suppressable by troops), to major uprisings like the Hussites in Bohemia or the Civil Wars in France.  These would be full fledged minor nations created driven by religious zeal and capable of massing large numbers of troops quickly (they should have a lot of free spawn troops... perhaps not very trained or equipped but extremely motivated) and aggressively in order to spread the new word.

And finally there would be class warfare.  This would be insurrection in order to secure the rights of a certain economically advantaged but politically muted class, such as happened with the communes of Paris (where the merchant class attempted to use the artisans against the nobility) or in Italy against the despots.  This would take the form of an insurrection within a city with the potential for pitched battle in the streets and perhaps even a seizing of power temporarily, however no minor nation should form unless the rebels are very successful.

Honestly, I doubt any of this will happen... however the key to implementing a good revolution/civil war system is to have things make sense.  If you are in a large war that is causing a massive amount of devastation for 30 years your peasants aren't going to be too happy and you should have to deal with peasant rebellions while you fight (as should your opponent... if most of the devastation is on his soil he should deal with more).  If your land is happy and prosperous, then your larger concern is probably the loyalty of the lords and governors who might be looking towards your throne.  If you are massively taxing your merchants in order to increase your military to prepare for war you should face unrest if you do things unwisely.  As long as the effects of your actions are predictable and the causes of civil war are both readily apparent and (under most circumstances) avoidable it should be fairly easy to make implementing such a feature add a great deal to the game.