Theory of multiple leaders for each Civilization

TheKingOfBigOz said:

As much as more efficient it is, would it really be fun?

The whole pleasure from Civ 5 leaders is the uniqueness they all bring, if you brought in say Abraham Lincoln, who would still have the same uniques.

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Not quite true; the UA would still be different. Obviously the UA would have completely different game dynamics, and would be used with different game strategies. So, you'd play Washington one way, and Lincoln another.

You have a point the UBs and UUs would be the same, but honestly they're still different than the other 42 Civs in the game. One point of similarity is nothing. So, I suppose you have 1/42 of a point.

Wodan said:

It takes more effort to design (even a UB requires graphic design), balance and playtest.

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It takes more time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time. The developers have been clear that it's the leaders that are the main bottleneck when it comes to adding new content.

Civ4 France provides a great example of how Civ5 could be improved upon with multiple leaders. They had the same UB and UI, but the leader traits coerced the player to utilize these identical advantages in completely different manners. Louis was rather pigeon-holed into the quintessential culture civ but also served as a creative (NPI) warmongerer. Napoleon was one of the best builder civs in the game and a top tier warmongerer as well. Regarding Salons, to Louis it meant a cultural atomic bomb to unleash with a side effect of increased tech rate. But to Napoleon, salons were a game-changing technological bonus (influenced by civics) a means of acquiring advanced weaponry, with a tangential bonus of border expansion.

Same form, completely different function and execution.

As far as the animated leader difficulty, it seems they caught themselves jumping the technological gun as far as what they should put in the game. Incorporate the leaderheads as they are when technology allows them to do so at a reasonable cost, but don't sacrifice gameplay quality to incorporate a neat (extremely arguably) graphic. All boils down to one question: would you rather play the most fun, thought-provoking, creativity enhancing game with Atari 2600 graphics, or an extremely elaborately decorated version of Pong? I'm going with the former 10 times out of 10

DarthSheldonPhD said:

All boils down to one question: would you rather play the most fun, thought-provoking, creativity enhancing game with Atari 2600 graphics, or an extremely elaborately decorated version of Pong? I'm going with the former 10 times out of 10

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Who says it has to be one or the other? You can have a game with good graphics AND good gameplay, both Civ 5 and Civ 4 (Which had good graphics in it's time) show that. Going your way would be like only allowing yourself to have plain bread, or only nutella, but not both.

Louis XXIV said:

It takes more time, but it doesn't take anywhere near as much time. The developers have been clear that it's the leaders that are the main bottleneck when it comes to adding new content.

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Sure. Didn't say it did. But since both of the alternatives being discussed have this cost, that's a moot point. The difference is the incremental time needed for UB/UU for the new-civ option.

Personally I'm not going to look down my nose on either option. The added gameplay with a 2nd leader could be almost as if not just as great, and the arguments in favor are telling.

DarthSheldon's example of Louis/Napoleon is a good one. Napoleon could have a military UA while Louis could have a cultural one. And, like I said, there are plenty of "2nd leader" possibilities that would add more "star power" for marketing/sales than adding the 44th civ would do. Lincoln, Churchill, Louis, Charlemagne, etc.

TheMarshmallowBear said:

A good way to do it would be the following

Unique Ability - What it says, something that only THEY can actually perform.

Traits - Simple Bonuses, such as stronger wall defenses, bigger food bonuses, quicker settler building etc.

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Yeah, that's an even better idea than mine to be honest I think the unique abilities were originally planned to follow the leader. As said, the UA is mentioned on the leader page, not the civilization page. I know some of the UAs would fit both leaders, but some are definitely build up around the leader.

PhilBowles said:

Yes, England is a good example. Now try doing the same for the Maya. Polynesia. Assyria. The Zulu. Siam. etc. etc. As it is they've had to invent completely fictitious uniques (Naruesan's Elephant - sure, Naruesan had an elephant, but it wasn't a special elephant), those that weren't unique in reality (Atlatlist, Battering Ram, Slinger, Siege Tower...), or things that were one-offs (Mud Pyramid Mosque, Royal Library). They're stretching to the limit to find two uniques for every civ; any more is neither possible nor obviously desirable.

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Think there might be a misunderstanding here. I'm not arguing that all civs should have two leaders or even more. Just some of them like the ones that had a big place in history. England, America and some others to mention a few.

Wodan said:

It takes more effort to design (even a UB requires graphic design), balance and playtest. Meanwhile, there's much more recognizable name power in adding 2nd leaders to some nations than in adding the 44th Civ.

So, we're talking Lincoln, Churchill, etc. vs leaders nobody has ever heard of before.

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Exactly my point. Well said Wodan

I kinda like having just the one leader per Civilization. Each leader feels special that way, as if they were chosen to represent their people. The UA, UU and UB are all loosely related to the leader, what he valued and when he was around.

Of course you could do this with multiple leaders per Civ as well but... Honestly I'd rather see new Civs at that point. There are civilizations I had never heard of before playing this game (Ashamed to admit: I didn't even know about Carthage before G&K...) and meeting them and learning about them is part of the fun for me. Also, the countries that would be most suited for multiple leaders are the most boring Civs to me anyways. The Zulus are far more interesting to me than France or America. The Shoshone intrigue me, whereas England doesn't.

It leaves them something new to do in the next game as well. If all interesting leaders had been taken in Civ V, what would they do for the next game? Pick a leader no one knows about?

George Washington didn't use B-52 bombers for sure

The argument that uniques suit the leader doesn't work. With multiple leaders it would suit a lot better. On the other hand I like new civilizations. But doing civilizations no one knows about gives you a little lesson, but you just get to know their uniques, traits and the history from the intro for that leader. Getting a second leader you teach you something about that new leader and how he/she made the civilization even greater

I definitely am okay with the one-leader deal. It'd be cool to have multiple leaders for every civ, but giving each of them unique abilities would be a waste of energy. The UAs are supposed to (very loosely) reflect something special about the civilization as a whole. Pacal did not invent the Long Count; Washington did not create the doctrine of Manifest Destiny; and Bismarck *certainly* had nothing to do with the ancient Germanic tribes besides most likely being descended from them.

Perhaps mixing the traits system with the UAs would be interesting though...

I do not understand what the problem is?:

Example:

Civilization:

France:

4 Unique Leaders and 4 Unique Units, one for each leader:

Joan D'Arc: UU: Trebuchet (or Armored Cavalry)
Louis XIV: Musketeer
Napoleon: Cuirassier
De Gaulle: Foreign Legion

In the game, if you meet Napoleon you know you're dealing with Cuirassiers, if Joan's in the game, she's building a lot of the good old Trebuchet.

You may indeed divide it further:
Joan was deeply Religious, Napo-a military general...
So an added benefit to Churches(Joan) or Barracks(Napo) as unique buildings comes to mind right away, perhaps a fresh new building on it's own, or an additional benefit for an existing building.

The deal is simple and only a lack of devotion, knowledge, research and ability could stop any dev. from adding more leaders to each tribe.

There should be several leaders, each with a different set of uu's, available for each civ, a lesser amount of leaders and subsequent uniques for a playable tribe would only indicate it's lesser importance in it's overall contribution to history of civilization, as we know it.

daft said:

I do not understand what the problem is?:

Example:

Civilization:

France:

4 Unique Leaders and 4 Unique Units, one for each leader:

Joan D'Arc: UU: Trebuchet (or Armored Cavalry)
Louis XIV: Musketeer
Napoleon: Cuirassier
De Gaulle: Foreign Legion

In the game, if you meet Napoleon you know you're dealing with Cuirassiers, if Joan's in the game, she's building a lot of the good old Trebuchet.

You may indeed divide it further:
Joan was deeply Religious, Napo-a military general...
So an added benefit to Churches(Joan) or Barracks(Napo) as unique buildings comes to mind right away, perhaps a fresh new building on it's own, or an additional benefit for an existing building.

The deal is simple and only a lack of devotion, knowledge, research and ability could stop any dev. from adding more leaders to each tribe.

There should be several leaders, each with a different set of uu's, available for each civ, a lesser amount of leaders and subsequent uniques for a playable tribe would only indicate it's lesser importance in it's overall contribution to history of civilization, as we know it.

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That's great and certainly works for nations with rich history such as France, Germany, England, Italy, Greece and the likes. Not so easy to make two, let alone four leaders for obscure "civilizations" like Songhai, the Zulus, Polynesia or any of the american natives.

Winston Churchill was PM of the United Kingdom, no? Wouldn't "England" make more sense to have a monarch from it's own past? Churchill was PM of Scotland and Wales too, which is most of Boudica's territory. Maybe England could have one of it's old historical monarchs like Alfred the Great.

Dividing UUs by historical era among the leaders would be cool too. Elizabeth or a more middle/modern ruler could have the ships of the line or Longbowmen, but if you go back to the viking raids on England, it showed its might with the huge amount of iron they possessed- Scandinavia was iron-poor at the time, and so rarely wore armour or used iron-heavy swords, instead using axes which have relatively less metal. The Anglo-Saxons meanwhile had full chain or scale armour, swords, helmets and the like for their infantry. You could have a Saxon warrior that was like a more armoured swordsman- +% to defense (you take damage as if you had a higher combat strength than you actually do) which could also be good for defending cities.



Speaking of more historically aligned UUs and UAs, a more pagan Danish leader could get a faith bonus from combat- maybe pillaging tiles or razing cities or losing units (dying on the battlefield to go to Valhalla)

New civs > new leaders.

I like reading about the history of the new civs, and a new leader doesn't do that.

To the people saying that nobody had even heard of some of the leaders/civs, the main ones I dint know where the the Native American ones. Not everyone who plays this game is from the USA.

May I introduce you to New Civilization section of Customization subforum?

There won't be discussion but there are solution of what you want is. I think modder has done so many civ now and as Firaxis probably finished with Civ5. There's only source for any new civilization you don't already have, assume that you have all of the expansion and DLC.

Great ideas for more leaders for each civilization, but I don't try to argue every civilizationa absolutely should have two leaders or more. Some famous civilizations that everyone knows about could have two or even more. Americans, english, french, japanese, chinese, russian, egyptians and some others, while other civilization must be happy to have only one leader like the polynesians, danish and zulus.

Illianor123 said:

New civs > new leaders.

I like reading about the history of the new civs, and a new leader doesn't do that.

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Wiki is helpful too. Don't think a game should be based on education only. You still get to learn about the leaders even though they are from the same civilization.

poom3619 said:

May I introduce you to New Civilization section of Customization subforum?

There won't be discussion but there are solution of what you want is. I think modder has done so many civ now and as Firaxis probably finished with Civ5. There's only source for any new civilization you don't already have, assume that you have all of the expansion and DLC.

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I'm sure you're right about this one - I guess this is more of a wish list than things that could actually happen. However, I find that there's a big distinction between Firaxis civs and civs from mods. Modders are different people that don't make them evenly strong. Sometimes it seems they make some OP to get more downloads. Still think they do a great job doing all those civs, just sad they aren't created in a community where they are evenly matched. Also the graphics of Firaxis' production is something different. But don't get me wrong - I've also played with modded civilizations.

dunkleosteus said:

Speaking of more historically aligned UUs and UAs, a more pagan Danish leader could get a faith bonus from combat- maybe pillaging tiles or razing cities or losing units (dying on the battlefield to go to Valhalla)

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Common mistake. The danes did pillage, but they were fabelous traders aswell. Their trades reached just as far or even further than pillaging. Being a dane I like the idea of vikings feared everywhere in the world, but the fact is not that they were feared by everyone However, I really dislike the norwegian ski infantry. I don't think they ever server in the danish army, and even though I'm danish I don't think I've ever heard a story about a norwegian ski infantry.

To further my point.
Each Civilization in the game has 1, 2, 3 or even 4 available leaders. Each leader in the game has a pre-set trait value. The number of UU's available for each tribe in the game depends on the number of leaders it has available.
For example:

France: 4 leaders (Joan, Louis, Napoleon, DeGaulle). 4 Uniqe Units available, to the nation, not just one leader, for example: Trebuchet (it's a distinctly FRENCH unit!), Musketeer, Cuirassier, Foreign Legion. Because number of available unique buildings is generally a bit shorter, a nation with the max, 4 leaders, has at least 2 Unique Buildings and 2 added bonuses to existing buildings, or perhaps 3 UB'S and 1 generic Building with an added bonus(for a French leader only).
Then comes the matter of UA's. This would solely depend on the pre-made personality of each leader. For example: Joan of Arc, a Honorable, Spiritual and Militaristic leader, might get a UA boosting the strength/population happiness from religious buildings, while Napoleon's UA would certainly deal with a militaristic bonus of sorts, LouisXVI bonus would be a cultural one, and DeGaule's a mix of military/cultural UA could apply.

Now, for nations where it's difficult to come up with more than one leader, or not so much leader, as more than 1 UU and UB, well, WHO IS ORDERING ALL NATIONS TO BE ON EQUAL TERMS? ZULUS, for example, might still have only 1 great leader (Shaka), UB and UA, but still, when he's in your game you still might be in tough with his Impi, especially if he gets lucky and is dealt excellent land for expansion at the beginning of the game.

Face it, some nations shaped the history of Earth's Civilzation, while such as the Zulus, or Polynesians, while significant and unique, could not compare to the likes of Rome, Greece, Great Britain or China in the scale of Cultural, Military, and all other forms of Civilized Discovery and Domination. And if you deny this, YOU ARE FOOLING YOURSELF!

In CIV V, when I see. for example the Shoshone, Huns or Zulus culturally leading Rome and/or Greece, it makes me laugh, everytime.

I totally agree with Dagt, and I'm a little surpriced no one agrees on this to be honorst. I live in Denmark and I'm happy to see Denmark in the game for the first time (though the Vikings appeared in Civ2). But to honorst I would find it more fair to see some great civilizations with a second leader like England / Great Britain, USA, China, Russia / Soviet Union, Rome and so forth.