@ CaptainCan
I thank you for your sound advice. They are truly thought provoking. Please go to our forum:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=346, where you can find a project road map. In that post we outlined what this mod could be in the future and how we intend to get there. In general, we will not divert too much attention to ideas not related to current release and the next release. Many of your ideas are great, but they are not our current priority. Now to your suggestions.
1. I find that legions are a bit overpowered.
They are. We are going to make them acceptable again, by balancing promotions and improving AI, but probably won't make a legion into one unit. That way might be great, but it's also too costly.
2. I notice that there are quite a bit of civ leaders but few heroes right now. Rhye's mod had dynamic leaders. When certain years arrived, the leader would change. I was wondering if it would be possible for this mod as well, but slightly different. For instance, when playing as Cao Cao, you would have his hero unit in the game. You can set a faction heir, and when Cao Cao dies, your leader would change to the faction heir. Also, leader units could get unique upgrades. Of course, heroes would have to die more often now. They should have an age, and based on history and probability from an actuarial table of that time period, they may die with a certain probability each turn (maybe start it at age 60).
Since you and other players have repeatedly suggested the change leader idea, we should seriously consider it. If we do it, we will give control to the player, while remain loyal to history. Selecting heir is a great way to give player the control, but it also bears the danger of betraying history.
The natural death of heroes is also a good idea we can implement.
3. On the topic of heroes, I was wondering if you could make it so that you can assign heroes as governors (with the option of removing them as well). Each turn, they would get xp to a civil level-up system (similar to the hero system right now), also they would get a boost in xp each time something was built (maybe in proportion to hammers). Their upgrades would boost the city (ie. happy faces, increased production, etc.), but the upgrades should be attached to the hero and not the city (ie. when the hero moves away, the upgrades for the city are removed as well). This should make it so that you can make city management much harder. Right now, it seems too easy to maintain city order (overwhelming happy faces). With this, you can make it so that you have to get some respectable governors for major cities to keep the populace happy.
This idea is in the domain of
Bureaucracy, which is in our future plan. Right now the heroes are all combat heroes. When the time comes for Bureaucracy, we can consider this again.
4. On the topic of city disorder. You can implement a similar system as revolutions where long-term unhappy cities rebel, and turn into independent minor states.
This idea is in the domain of
Our People.
5. Back to heroes, you can separate them out into military officers (the heroes right now) and civil officers. Civil officers can't form legions (but can be governors) but can have a special diplomacy upgrade. With this upgrade when they move onto a foreign unit, they have the option of bribing the unit (and heroes as well). And if you're at war, you can let some civil officers have the option of a stealth upgrade so they move similar to spies and can still bribe enemies. Similar to recruiting, bribing costs will be a proportion to enemy hero's belief, historical faction, loyalty, honour (described next), etc. Also, since you need governors now, probably would need a lot more heroes too (should appear around the correct year with a message saying that they are now recruitable).
I believe this idea is in the domain of
Strategy.
6. When a hero is captured, his willingness to surrender to your services should be probability based with relation to loyalty, honour, and if his historical faction is still alive. Honour is a new innate stat which can't be changed. This is based historically for a hero's dedication to service (ie. would rather die than surrender).
Although this idea is in the domain of
Allegiance, we could implement a small part of it in the current release, making the hero's chance of surrender vary based on his loyalty to current owner and historical relationship to the capturing player.
7. I was also wondering if you can include unique items like in the old ROTK games. Items are immobile if unattached and can be captured. They can be attached to heroes giving them unique upgrades (but can also be removed).
Yes, we could do that. Many people want them. But we will not do it right now. It can wait until Legions are finished up.
8. On loyalty and bribing, perhaps the loyalty system can be more dynamic. Each turn loyalty can go up/down.
For instance, positive modifiers:
- correct hero belief
- correct historical faction alignment
- salary
- managing major cities
- holding an item
- winning battles previous turn
- successful bribe attempt previous turn (should be somewhat substantial to offset idling negative modifier)
- assign as governor previous turn (major boost proportional to city size)
- being given an item previous turn (major boost)
Negative modifiers:
- different hero belief
- different historical faction alignment
- idling around (no legion, no battle, no city to manage)
- managing minor cities (ie. population 1-2)
- losing battles previous turn
- unsuccessful bribe attempt previous turn
- remove as governor previous turn (major decline proportional to city size)
- removing an item previous turn (major decline)
Also, instead of hero upkeep, you can give them all a salary you set. So the higher the pay, the more loyalty goes up per turn.
I love this idea. It's the basic idea of
Allegiance. CivIV has one great feature that is the personality of leaders. If we could achieve similar effect to heroes, it would be great.
9. Also, it would be interesting to implement a dueling system (defeat or refusal to duel decreases morale in legion, resulting in temporary negative upgrade, and victory increases morale). But I'm unsure how this would best be done in civ as it will most likely have to be completely probability based.
I'm afraid this is the hardest idea to implement, the harder part is not refuse to duel, but actually accept. This thing is totally animation, which we have little control.