I was quite happy when BtS introduced the unrestricted leader/civ combinations, but then things got a little confusing. In one game, I was near the middle of a large continent, and I had Bismark of the Mayans on the Left and someone like Ghandi of the Germans to the south. I don't remember if there were other matches like this; but with the other civs around also, it was becoming confusing to remember who was who and what country they represented.

It was after that game, that I decided that it was not cheating if I just edited the leader info xml file to give whatever civ I was playing the traits that I wanted. It was much easier to follow identities after that, and the effect is almost exactly the same as the unrestricted leaders.

It would probably take a base code change to actually implement this in general though.

I don't like messing with the XML unless my changes will be permanent (IE adding a civ or adding a leader). It seems like too much of a bother to mess with it like that. But as to the UL option, I agree fully. I only tried this option once to have the infamous Boudica of Rome. I rocked the house winning a conquest vic in 1000AD, but if I wanted to do anything other than steamroll the enemy, I woulda had a horrible time matching the civs with the leaders and their traits apart. It would have driven me nuts.

An in-game option somehow feels less like cheating than going in and tampering with the XML files. :)

I had Bismark of the Mayans on the Left and someone like Ghandi of the Germans to the south. I don't remember if there were other matches like this; but with the other civs around also, it was becoming confusing to remember who was who and what country they represented.



This is half the fun of this for me.
It is just an extension of the random personalities check box. In fact the two together can be really interesting.
IE Is that really Boudacia of the romans or is it Montadacia of the romans. :eek:
Think about that one for a bit. :lol:

Now as to the option to just pick your traits it would not be a horible thing but I think you would have to give some real thought to how the AI would get theirs assigned. YOu would not want Agressive\agressing as theirs right or are you thinking that only the Human player would get to pick.
I would not llike that at all.....

Well, I'm pretty sure that the human would pick and the AI would get random combos. Agg/Agg wouldn't be possible. I imagine there would be coding to prevent doubling up of a trait.

As to fairness: The AI gets the shaft anyway, so what's the difference. AI cannot regen map if it gets a crappy starting pos, AI doesn't understand military tactics, AI doesn't grasp Trait/UU/UB/Map type synergies, and AI cannot exploit his rivals with tech trades and manufacturing world wars. I feel kinda bad for them now... maybe I'll up my diff level... well, maybe not :blush:

...Now as to the option to just pick your traits it would not be a horible thing but I think you would have to give some real thought to how the AI would get theirs assigned. YOu would not want Agressive\agressing as theirs right or are you thinking that only the Human player would get to pick.
I would not llike that at all.....

I thought about that briefly, but other than randomizing the traits, how else would the AI get to "pick" its values. In that sense, the human is the only one that really gets to pick. With unrestricted leaders it really is the same thing. The human picks the leader with the traits he desires, and the other leaders are randomly assigned to the selected countries included in that game. It is almost the same as allowing the Human to pick traits directly, and the computer is randomly assigned traits. The only difference is that the "personality" of the leader comes with the trait combo for the AI (a good thing IMO) unless of course that is also randomized using the already existing option.

It would not necessarily be a bad option, but it just seemed somewhat pointless to automatically randomize historical AI leaders when almost all the combinations are there, and which countries are included are already randomly selected anyways.

Given that reasoning, I defaulted to just allowing the human to pick and don't worry about random assignments of traits. The other option would be to have a pre-set group of "good" trait combinations and randomly assign the AI players from that pool, but then you lose the other options.

Well, I'm pretty sure that the human would pick and the AI would get random combos. Agg/Agg wouldn't be possible. I imagine there would be coding to prevent doubling up of a trait.

As to fairness: The AI gets the shaft anyway, so what's the difference. AI cannot regen map if it gets a crappy starting pos, AI doesn't understand military tactics, AI doesn't grasp Trait/UU/UB/Map type synergies, and AI cannot exploit his rivals with tech trades and manufacturing world wars. I feel kinda bad for them now... maybe I'll up my diff level... well, maybe not :blush:

I guess I need to be a bit clearer with what I mean.

Just like the unrestricted leaders or random personalities this would add a bit of different flavoring to the game, and it would be nice if it were done in a way that would still have the game fun.
IE it is a challeng and but not a slaugher on either side AI or Human.

with unrestricted leaders you could explicitly pick all your oponets and their leaders to make them match (ghandi of india etc) and then choose your random leader and civ that do not match, but really most folks probably use it for flavoring and leave the AI at random, random at lest I know I do..

So with the Trait Blender TM :D so to speak it would make sense that it would be good to have the blender apply, so to speak for the AI's as well as for the player, it adds to the flavor.

Otherwise what it seems folks really want is to have the option just make a *Custome Leader* option of your own *custom civ* where you can choose traits, UU, UB, and color from the list and then go.. This is not in and of itself bad just not the same thing. In fact on mentioning it it would be really quite cool from a different flavor standpoint. If you really want to go for fantasy land toss in a little leader head assembly kit for yourselves and you ahve a serious contender for a great feature.

But If you are going to add this Trait Blender TM in, it would make sense to either have it be a randomization like the unrestricted leaders is mostly now and add in strictures so that it cannot dup them,(ie agg,agg) or now that I think of it actualy a wieghted random for the AI traits. So that it is more capable of not being completly cripplied, and might actualy be a bit of a bastard to play against if they got assigned a really nasty combination. IE Ghandi with philosophical, industrious :-) or Monty ch,agg


The AI may not know the synergies of say say the mongol ger with a charismatic leader trait like a human would, but that does not mean that it would not build the units with it any way should it be assigned them. Just look at the samurai that tokugawa builds as is...

^^^I see. That's what I would do... hey, maybe I will do that one game! I rather like the random meetings, though.

The AI may not know the synergies of say say the mongol ger with a charismatic leader trait like a human would, but that does not mean that it would not build the units with it any way should it be assigned them. Just look at the samurai that tokugawa builds as is...

The AI will build UU / UB as it fits the strategy for the leader "attitude" or "behavior" or whatever (IE a warmongerer will stress unit building and war most heavily when the UU is available). What I meant was that the AI wouldn't be able to choose traits that are synergistic with the UU/UB for unrestricted leaders. It would be random and therefore the AI is at an even further disadvantage. Think about Boudica of India. Not a very synergistic combination.

Think about Boudica of India. Not a very synergistic combination.

Actualy that could be an interesting combo and actualy for a war junkie like Boudacia it is actualy not all that bad. mausoleum is a very nice UB to speed espianoge along, and it would reducee her ww granted the AI does not have to much trouble with that as is.....although there is no war time UU to work with. :crazyeye:

But I do get your meaning that it would not pick a trait combo to go with a particulare UU or UB. :cool:

Just about any combo would be interesting and probably very fun to try. But as to the synergy and efficiency, like you said, it probably wouldn't go for such a combo.