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Salutations, Industrialists!
I'm Marc, a Producer on Gilded Destiny. In today's dev diary, we'll discuss how rebellions have been modeled in Gilded Destiny, including how government support and POP happiness affect public unrest, how different kinds of government can deal with growing unrest, and what happens when the populace breaks out in open rebellion.
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Without further ado, let's dive in.
Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
By 1822, the 'Great Democratic Experiment' of the United States was well underway, busily setting about establishing the conditions that would lead to a rebellion of its own. In South America, the Iberian colonies followed suit, throwing off the yoke of their European monarchs. Meanwhile, in the Old World, memories of the French Revolution were still fresh in people's minds, spawning dreams of nation-states, egalitarian republics, and fair wages.
In short, the Nineteenth Century was a time of rapid change, and as such, it was an ideal breeding ground for revolutionary sentiment (both for and against the changing times).
We wanted our game to be able to reflect the complexity and variety of revolutions that occurred, and to do so in a way that allowed for dynamic rebellions that responded to how and why a country was changing. We aim to give the players different tools for dealing with revolutionary elements, depending on the kind of country they are trying to create.
So, without further ado, it's time to go over how we've modeled rebellions in Gilded Destiny.
Unrest
To start with, we have Unrest. Every province has an Unrest value of 0 to 100, and when Unrest reaches 100, that triggers a rebellion (which means that a rebel army will spawn in the province).
The Unrest system is designed to give the player multiple options when deciding how they want to deal with state control, as well as producing dynamic and realistic rebellions that stem from identifiable causes. At the same time, it is designed to limit the number of rebellions that will actually happen, while still making the maintenance of public order an important part of running the country. The main causes of Unrest are low Government Support and POPs with low Happiness (although other factors can also contribute to it).
If a government makes a lot of unpopular decisions, such as losing wars, getting embroiled in scandals, and so on, it causes low Government Support. Low Government Support adds Unrest to all provinces in a top-down fashion.
When it comes to Unrest that's being generated by POPs, the size of the POP matters: a small POP may never be able to generate enough Unrest on its own to cause a rebellion. There must be a critical mass of unhappy people in the province to push Unrest to 100. This Unrest is applied to individual provinces in a bottom-up fashion.
There is also the Unrest Threshold, the exact value of which varies depending on the type of government you have. When the Unrest value is above the Unrest Threshold (but hasn't yet reached 100), Unrest Events may happen in your country. Unrest Events usually give you a chance to try to get things under control (at a cost) before a full-scale rebellion actually happens.
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