An interesting idea, that would delay the game, but add to gaming experience

connorkimbro · August 7, 2001, 01:40

While browsing through some thread's, i saw alexanders posts about animated leaders, and i saw the elizabeth/victoria dilemma.

Well, i thought, wouldn't it be neat if each civilization had SEVERAL leaders, some male, and some female, and the leader would be representative of that civ's "personality" for the game.

Thus, each civ would, in different games, have different playing styles. . in one game the germans might be very aggressive and expansionist, and have Hitler (yuch) as the leader. In another game, they would have Fredric the Great as a leader. . along with a different "personality" There's a big difference between how different leaders led their respective countries, and that could EASILY be reflected by randomizing which leaders each country would start off with, and have each leader AI play the game a different way. . this would also add a bit of variation to the game. . which becomes multipied when you have all 7 or 8 (or however many) civs going at once, each one with 4-8 different leader choices.

sure, it would be more work, animating all those leaders. . but i can't think of anything ELSE that would need to be done to add this, what do you ya'll think?

TechWins · August 7, 2001, 01:54

I think it would be cool having this in the game. But it would slow down the creation time, ultimately leading to a far away release date. Polypheus' idea of randomizing civ personalities is something like this but it requires much less work by Firaxis. I think I like Polypheus' idea more because it would take a lot less time for the game to be released.

Urban Ranger · August 7, 2001, 01:59

Who needs animated leaders? That's just worthless eye candy. It's easy to implement your idea without the animated leader silliness, connor.

Miatezhnyi · August 7, 2001, 02:36

I like connerkimbro's idea. Perhaps one of the alternate leader's (randomly chosen) could take over when the government changes hands.

Rasputin · August 7, 2001, 02:49

perhpas getting the leader to change as time goes past.. you know profression through the timelines , could be drastic changes in leadership style to suit the time period, would be great for a historical type game ...

Of course no good and complete waster of time for MP....

jsw363 · August 7, 2001, 08:08

I like the idea that the civ leader's personality would change each time teh civ has a revolution. This would be more historically accurate, though I know that this doesn't matter as much to some of you. I also think that it would improve gameplay since your interaction with the other civs would change depending on thier personality/ objectives at the time.

I do agree though that changing the leaders' animations would be nice, it's not realistic if we want a fall release date. Therefor I would be in favor of just randomizing the personalities each game and having them change during recolutions. This would keep you off-balance interms of other civ's strategies.

Kropotkin · August 7, 2001, 09:23

I find it to be a great Idea. Although I can't think of any peaceful, civilized mongolian leaders that are into trade just now...

Jsw's idea isn't bad either although the changing of goverment should in itself lead to changes in a civs policy. It's alwys fun with a barbaric and warlike leader trapped by his civs democratic goverment.

Sabre2th · August 7, 2001, 09:36

I support randomized leader personalities (this is already in according to a couple previews), but not more leaders. The personality can change, but the animated leaders are just unnecessary fluff. I'd rather have the game sooner

wotan321 · August 7, 2001, 09:56

HOPEFULLY there will be something like an "events" file that will allow us to use Govt change as a trigger to leader/personality change.

Ecthy · August 7, 2001, 10:37

I think it's a good idea. It sucks that civs are predictable even before you start the game. maybe those leaders should change during the years, so that the "personality" of a civ changes during the game

(if someone else has already brought up this, I'm sorry... I tend to not read threads before I post in them

)

as for the animation dilemma - I don't know what we need animated leaders for anyway... they should have taken over Social Engineering, Public Works and a customizable unit model anyway

Eagle one · August 7, 2001, 12:30

Quote:

Well, i thought, wouldn't it be neat if each civilization had SEVERAL leaders, some male, and some female, and the leader would be representative of that civ's "personality" for the game.

When I played Civ II, the animated leaders (Herolds) didn't work. But I haven't really missed them much. Another thing has annoyed me. All the civs were the same! I mean they just had no "personality". So I would find it a great idea if every civilization act different. One civ is more agressiv, another civ is more peaceful.

This difference could be done by the leaders. Every leader would have a different style and would so give its civilization "personality". If he do a bad job, his citizen would just through him out of power and another leader would rule the civilization.

If another leader takes control, the behave of the civ will suddenly change. A peaceful civ will get very angry. Just image if the Germans get a new leader, perhaps Hitler!

jsw363 · August 7, 2001, 12:51

"So I would find it a great idea if every civilization act different. One civ is more agressiv, another civ is more peaceful. This difference could be done by the leaders. Every leader would have a different style and would so give its civilization "personality".

Umm..... sorry to tell you, but there WAS a difference between the leaders. Some were agressive, pacifist, perfectionist, etc. Each leader was "supposed" to have a distinct personality even if this wasn't apparent.

I would agree that there wasn't perhaps a clearly discernable difference in some cases. I for one DID want leaders' personalities to be more distinct than they already were. While some leaders' decisions were predictable, they all reacted the same way to certain situations.

Ecthy · August 7, 2001, 12:58

he's not talking about different civ personalities... he's talking about different leaders with different personalities for each civ... that's a difference to CIV2, where each civ had its personality, no matter whether it had a male or female leader.

Eagle one · August 7, 2001, 13:51

My proposal: There are different leaders with a different style of ruling the civilization. A leader will give his civ "personality" (perhaps not the best word). So it depends on the leader how the civ reacts to certain actions. If they want to solve a crisis by diplomacy or by war. It also depends on the leader, which goverment to choice or even how much science is being done. So every civ should NOTICEABLY behave different.

Because of personality depending on the leader, the behavior of a civ can suddenly change just by changing the leader. This would add realism to the game. Just take a look at Germany. When Hitler was ruling the land, the Germans were an aggressiv civ, causing WWII. Now they are a peaceful.

So it would be FUN and REALISM if civs act different and change their behavior during the game.

PS.: You are right jsw363. In CIV I + II, leaders had such attributes like agressive or perfectionist. But I think they didn't really cause much different between the civs.

Ecthy · August 7, 2001, 14:02

Quote:

Originally posted by Eagle one
When Hitler was ruling the land, the Germans were an aggressiv civ, causing WWII. Now they are peaceful.

Right

SerapisIV · August 7, 2001, 15:16

I like Connor's idea. It'd be pretty cool to throw in diferent unique units based on the leader as well. With Frederick the Great, better infantry, with Hitler, better tanks or something like that. Be a pain in the as.s to balance though

connorkimbro · August 7, 2001, 20:09

unique units i'm not to thrilled about, but i don't think that having different leaders would add TOO much work the the game.

setting all the personalities should be a piece of cake, should be very easy to add. . and thus the only real amount of work would be the animations for all the new leaders. hard to say how long that would take, because i don't know much about creating graphics.

also, modifying a civ's behavior based on government type could work, but i think primarily, it needs to be a civ's personality that is associated with specific leaders that would really be the visible difference. .

it will be a fun game without this feature, but if done right, it could add a significant amount of replayability. .

SerapisIV · August 8, 2001, 12:05

I'm not thrilled over unique units, but whether we like them or not their in the game. Also, if you're gonna put the time into making a bunch of leaders with different animations and personalities, why not go whole hog and throw additional unique units into the fray? If you have pacifist leader, you get a stronger defensive unit. For a war-monger, a stronger offensive unit. For Elizabeth and the Brits, a better warship. For Churchill and the Brits, you get a better fighter plane.