This topic is for a "dictator" type game (turn based strategy/sim). I want to focus here on internal conflicts like rebels, uprising, military coups.

I look for anything related, comments, polishing, other ideas.

A *very* short list of other games of this genre

Dictator from ZX-Spectrum (remake here: http://www.nrtoone.com/dictator/ ), Tropico 1,3,4 (a nice one, partially based on ZX-Spectrum version but with focus on infrastructure, but the internal struggle part is weak, especially in earlier instances), and some very old PC almost text only game I can't recall the name that you always ended up overthrowed no matter what you did.

In short, not much to borrow from :)

Premise of my game

You are a dictator of a small island made up of around 16 provinces. Each province has some infractructure, ecnonomy, population, etc. Among other things these can revolt (not necessarily the whole population, could be just some factions that don't want you in power anymore). By design the situation on the island would be somewhat unstable, so you would need to face some internal threats on regular basis even if you keep the population perfectly happy.

My idea of implementation (the rebel part)

There would be a RED faction (some sort of extremely levist communits that wants to replace you). The map (and the whole game) would be kind of "layered", each province would have infrastructure, population and other stuff you can affect. It will also have statistics of RED support level in a province, number of their bases and guerillas. You can't easily affect this "enemy" layer, it does not affect you as well. But when a rebelion breaks up, all these provinces will spawn enemy military units that you need to fight of with your army before they reach and capture your capital.

You would have 2 main assets to fight RED, police and army (tokens on the map). Police would be used to slow down the support of the RED. The army would be used to fight RED when things go too grim (like full blown uprising with spawn RED units or fight the guerillas). Optionally, you would be able to send army to do more drastic, semi police like actions, but it would cause discontent among the population.

Or maybe police would be tracking rebel bases and then the army would launch attack to eradicate them.

Generally, you would be trying to reduce the support of RED (by not upseting population and by using police) and later, when inevitably they start a rebel, use army to crush them (and protect your palace).

I was also thinking of adding another faction, the YELLOW (or orange), some sort of rich plantators or capitalists that would like to get rid of you as well, BUT above all they do not want the RED to take over. They would always attack RED first, and in a desperate situation, they could even help you (they see you as the lesser evil).

So you have a dilemma, they are bad and they undermine your rule (reduce stability of your country and have other unpleasant effects), but they are not that strong (to rebel openly) and they could help stop the RED. You could want to get rid of them or order police to overlook them so they can fight your common enemy, the RED.

Hmm. Not enough for me.

What exactly do you mean by not enough? Like:

1) The rebel mechanic is not so good

2) The rebel mechanic is OK, but you would want more alternative options (like running your country peacefully without any rebels)

3) Something else?

At that moment there wasn't enough for me to really understand what could be influencing.

OK, I will explain the very core of the rebel mechanic.

- there are 16 provinces, one of them is your capital

- each province has "rebel support" variable, it increases over time, the speed of increase depends on how you treat your population, you can dispatch police units to a province to slow down the rebel support increase

- sooner or later a "rebellion" event will be triggered, when it happens the "rebel support" value will be converted into rebel combat units (traditional units that move on the map)

- your army units will fight rebel units, if rebel units reach your capital you lose

That't the basis, there could be extras like not only rebel support is created but also it can create rebel bases (which you can destroy before rebelion starts), or guerillas (bad province event, can get rid of them by dispatching army to a province).

My primary question is if this mechanic is good? Get rid of it? Keep it? Polish/improve it?

So I'm just guessing you're staying on Earth modern realistic. All humans of a single race, women and men alike literate equal rights. That sort of thing.

1) Are there value limits? Looking at the example game: 0 low 9 high and actions to increase or decrease past the limit results in no change.

Yes, partially. Support can't be higher than population of the province. If there are 2k people, rebels can at most get 2k strength (which is unlikely since support of 50% would be a soft cap). It also means the player can afford (and actually should in many cases) let the situation go wild in some uninmportant provinces (mountains with a few small villages, let the rebels rule there) and focus on defending important provinces instead (capital and provinces with cities).

2) Is there a setup phase? If so do I choose where my capital will be?

No. You are a dictator, not a settler, you inherited/obtained the country with a pre existing situation and your goal is to change it (or not let it degrade further). There also will be, quite likely, different scenarios (with different starting conditions).

3) Are there multiple phases per turn once the game started?

No... Each turn would probably represent 1 month, so you will be operating at the strategy level. Note that most of the time you will be dealing with economy (building infrastructure) not with fighting rebels.

4) Can the the rebellion event occur multiple times?

Yes, definitely.

5) Is there any more you can reveal about how fighting works?

I think it will be quite primitive (since it's not a wargame). You have police units, regular army units and heavy army units. Rebels have just one generic rebel unit. Police units can fight rebels but that's a last resort, they are primarily used to suppress the support before the rebelion occurs. Regular army units are like 2-3 times stronger than rebel units. Heavy army units are not really meant to fight rebels, they are 3 times stronger than your regular army units and are used for military coups threats, they can fight rebels, but not much better than regular units and they have heavy penalties in mountain provinces.

Generally, when opposing units occupy the same province they fight until one is crushed (destroyed rebel units will spawn "guerillla markers" in the province, which you should deal with later). The combat in province represents a series of battles in a big territory (a province is rather big battlefield), it could take 3 turns (months) to reach a conclusion.

Each province is controlled by the government (you) or by rebels. If you are fighting an opponent you can withdraw to neighbour province that is controled by your side (so you can retreat with your police units for example).

You (the player) are time pressed, the very existence of regular, moving rebel units (not guerillas) makes people doubt if you (the government) is controling the country. Prolonged fighting with rebels might make the population to overthrow you (or a military coupt will start if the military decides that a general would be a better dictator since you are so incompetent). Generally, rebels, even during a rebellion are not that deadly strong, but they have all the time on this planet and they can start a new rebellion later; you don't have this luxury and you need to crush them every time and you need to do it swiftly.

I wonder about two things.

First, maybe there should be some sort of "domino" effect? Like the if there are rebels in a province, it get's harder to get rid of rebels from neighbour province. So, a province surrounded by rebel provinces would be extremely hard to clean up. Or something similar, I'm not sure...

Second, how about more militry "operations" options for the player? Like airborne transfer of troops (needs to be limited somehow) or some elite units maybe?