Great Leaders and Other Semi-Random Events:

1) Military Great Leaders: Appear when you win a military victory with an elite unit, or when you build a militaristic Wonder/improvement or discover a military tech for the first time in an age. Have a greater chance of appearing in a militaristic civ, or one in which the military is dominant. They can be used to build armies, rush military buildings or grant a bonus to the morale, hp and fp (or attack strength) of all units for 20 turns.

2) Scientific Great Leaders: Appear when you have discovered a pure-science tech (or built a scientific Wonder/improvement) for the first time in an age. Have a greater chance of appearing in a Scientific Civ, or one where the Scientists are dominant. The can be used to rush Scientific buildings, rushed to get your next tech straight away-or they can grant you a bonus to science for 20 turns.

3) Cultural/Religious Great Leaders: Appear when you discover a cultural/philosophical tech for the first time in an age, when you build a cultural or religious Building for the first time in an age, or the first time your culture doubles in an age. They have a greater chance of appearing in Religious/Expansionist Civs, or ones where Religion is dominant. They can be used to rush cultural/religious buildings, sacrificed to double the culture value of that city-or sent of to try and ‘convert’ the citizens of other civs to your culture.

4) Great Explorers: Appear when you make contact, with a new civ, for the first time in an age-or the first time you pop a goody-hut (or minor civ, if that rule is used). They can also appear any time you get an ‘exploration’ tech. They have a greater chance of appearing in expansionist and Seafaring civs. They can be used to rush expansionist buildings, found a city, sacrificed to reveal a portion of the map to you, or they can boost all of your units movements by 1 for 20 turns.

5) Great Industrialists: Can appear in a city whose production levels are at least 2x greater than your civs mean. They can also appear when your civ gets its first Industrial tech for that age. They have the greatest chance of appearing in Industrial Civs. They can be rushed to build Industrial buildings, they can be sacrificed in a city to boost it’s production by +50%, or they can grant a +2 production bonus-civ wide- for 20 turns.

6) Great Economists/Entrepreneurs: Can appear in a city whose wealth is at least 2x greater than your civs mean. They can also appear when your civ gets its first commercial tech for that age. They have the greatest chance of appearing in Commercial civs-or ones where the Wealthy are dominant. They can be sacrificed to rush a commercial building, or to boost a city’s wealth by +50%. Otherwise, they can be used to get a wealth bonus, for all cities, for 20 turns.

7) Great Naval Leaders: Can appear whenever a naval elite unit wins a victory, or when your civ gets its first seafaring tech in an age. They have a greater chance of appearing in Seafaring or Militaristic civs. They can be used to build a Navy (naval army), they can rush seafaring buildings, or they can give a bonus to morale, fp and hp for all naval units-for 20 turns.
8) Great Diplomats/Political Leaders: Can appear whenever you change your government, or when you build corruption-reducing and/or diplomatic Wonders. They can also appear after you’ve made diplomatic deals. They have a greater chance of appearing in Expansionist and Commercial Civs. They can be sacrificed to rush the aformentioned diplomatic and Corruption-reducing Wonders. They can also be sacrificed to boost your international reputation with ALL nations you have contact with. Lastly, they can boost the length, and value, of all diplomatic agreements for 20 turns.

Other so-called ‘Random Events’ (which I prefer to call ‘semi-random events’) that I’d like to see are:

1) Revolts and Civil Wars: I’ve mentioned the possible causes and results of these in other threads-but I feel that this should be the least Random of the ‘Random Events’.

2) Plagues: Pretty much as they are in civ3 (i.e. population, walled, trade network all should effect the chance). The amount of budget put into healthcare, discovery of techs like medicine and sanitation, pollution levels and the presence of appropriate infrastructure and hospitals in cities, should all effect the overall chance of plague appearing and spreading-as should the use of biological weapons.

3) Dark Ages: These cause a loss of X techs already discovered in that Era, and a loss of culture-as well as reducing cultural and scientific advancments for X turns. The chance of a dark age are influenced by the following factors:

Loss of the Capital and/or 25% of your civ to barbarians and/or minor civs, Plagues and/or Civil Wars, Loss of Capital and/or 25% of your civ to another major civ, Levels of Secularism, Sudden drops in science output and/or cultural growth. Certain Improvements and/or Wonders can increase or reduce the chance of a dark age.

4) Renaissance: The Opposite of a Dark Age, and dependant on many of the same factors (though in reverse ;)). In addition, being in a Golden Age increases the chance of a Renaissance.

5) Recession/Depression: Causes a sudden drop in Wealth and Production in X cities for Y turns-with 1 turn being a recession, and 8-10 turns being more like a Depression. Factors that influence it are:

Time since last war, the number of commercial improvements, amount of private investment, number of foreign trade deals, level of crime and corruption, interest rates and tax rates and the current level of dept and foreign loans.
Like a plague, a recession can spread from an affected city to an uneffected city-and can inrease the chance of other civs having a recession

6) Economic Booms: Are the opposite of Recessions, and have the factors which increase the chance of a recession have the opposite effects on the chance of a boom, and vice versa. Wars, for instance, can greatly increase the chance of an economic boom. Booms increase Wealth and production in x cities, for y turns.

7) Desertion: Loss of military units. The chance would be based on investment in your defense budget, morale of your units, experience levels of your units and the number of defeats your civ has lost. Deserting units can be bribed by other civs to join them, or else they become unaffiliated ‘barbarian’ units.

8) Mercenaries: These are units which appear to join you civ, the chance of them appearing is based on your defense spending, the number of victories you have won, and the average morale/xp levels of your forces.

9) Omens: Good or bad, these can make your people happy or unhappy and, either way, they will increase the influence of your Religious faction. The chance is based on your Secularisation, religious influence and the recent occurance of other major disasters (like earthquakes, plagues or volcanic eruptions).

10) Floods, Droughts, Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions: These are the most random of the random events. Floods and Droughts will, depending on the era, last from 2-20 turns. The chance of them appearing, and the intensity of their effects, will depend on terrain factors, pollution levels and the presence/absence of improvements.
As for Earthquakes and Volcanoes, their chance of appearing should be based on the age and terrain settings you give at the start of the game-with certain parts of your world having a chance of being ‘Hot-Spots’ for Seismic activity. Any of these events can be very devestating, though, costing many of your citizens lives or, at the worst, your entire city!

In the opening screen, it should be possible to decide WHICH random events you do/do not want in the game (Maybe with 7 choices-Revolts/Civil Wars; Plagues; Dark Age/Renaissance; Recession/Booms; Desertion/Mercenaries; Floods/Droughts and ‘Earthquakes/Volcanoes’.) I think that random events would give an excellent new feel to the game- a feel which could see a leading nation plunged into darkness at any time, and which will especially make the late game much more interesting!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Dark Ages are too overpowered. Europe went into a Dark Age because the current world leader, Rome, fell to be replaced by illiterate barbarian tribes. The "Dark Age" was simply a case of the world being run by technologically inferior people. You'll notice that Byzantium didn't go into a Dark Age with the rest of Europe, because the Byzantines didn't fall. Even if everything a country owned was destroyed down to a single city, the country wouldn't go into a "Dark Age" unless it kept all the copies of important patents in a different city. Of course, having only one city would take a nasty toll on production, but that's well-simulated in CivIII. And the Random Events shouldn't all be toggle options, or there would be far too many variations from the norm. It's like setting each unit and Improvement to a different toggle key. Maybe just one toggle reading "Natural Disasters." And, if they're included, Revolts should not be toggle options, because they'd be far too integral a part of the game.

Originally posted by Aussie_Lurker
...sacrificed to double the culture value of that city...
Ouch. If I get this, I'll build up my culture for one city, wait for 10,000 culture and bam: one city culture victory.

OK, I confess that I haven't worked out the details on this one. Obviously double culture for that city is a LITTLE excessive, but I am open to suggestions for what kind of bonus this Great Leader can grant if its sacrificed. Another alternative is that if you DON'T sacrifice the great leader within X turns, then you get the 20 turn bonus instead!

Aussie_Lurker.

I've been thinking, Mertathio, that Dark Ages wouldn't be THAT powerful for several reasons:

Firstly, it takes very extreme circumstances to bring one about. Each of those factors is only one possible cause but, without several at once, any one trigger event on its own would not be enough to push you into a dark age-any more than one single trigger event would be enough to push you into a recession.

Secondly, YES you would lose a lot of techs, potentially, and a fair bit of culture but, if you aren't in the tech lead, then it would be easy enough to pick up many of your lost techs from your allies and trading partners. The point I should have made is that you are MOST likely to lose Pure Science techs, and you are least likely to lose your cultural/philosophical techs. Also, if you're at the start of an age when a dark age hits, then your losses will be VERY small!
Anyway, my feeling was that we needed SOMETHING in the game to mimic the fact that human scientific and economic progress has NOT been exponential-but has hit a number of bumps and setbacks over the centuries. By making such events semi-random, rather than COMPLETELY random, I thought it would be a lot more fair!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

That makes a bit more sense. Still, most of the techs in Civilization are "major scientific breakthroughs" that a civ would be unlikely to lose, no matter what. For instance, if a country learned Flight, then got practically annihilated by illiterate barbarian hordes, there would still be people who knew how Flight worked. Remember, the historical Dark Age was the way it was because it was basically the same thing as the world getting taken over by an illiterate country (although, granted, it wasn't really a unified country, but you understand my meaning).

[double post. for some reason, I can't delete this altogether]

As I said, though, as long as SOMEONE in the world knows flight, then you will probably be able to get it from them. Also a Dark Age wouldn't neccessarily happen the VERY minute you lost your capital to the 'illiterate barbarians'!
In addition, a Dark Age, like its positive counterpart 'Renaissance' would be an incredibly RARE event. It would probably happen, at most, once in an entire era. By the modern era there should be almost no chance, AT ALL, of going into a dark age-unless you had some kind of Superstitious Theocracy which saw ALL technology as 'Work of the Devil' ;).

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

There is some other ideas that i came up with a while ago about great leaders if you look in
this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=85874)

I think that too many of those GL's you have a re dependent on scientific discoveries, I think it should only be the scientific great leader that came of techs

Good idea about the dark age though. It should make it more important to keep your capital. But how is the rennaissance going to work. Do you just get techs instantly or what?

BTW my post number 200 :)

Originally posted by RegentMan
Ouch. If I get this, I'll build up my culture for one city, wait for 10,000 culture and bam: one city culture victory.

i thought of this too way too easy