Theory of multiple leaders for each Civilization

I think I've mentioned this before in another thread, but to get everyone believes on this I just started a new thread to let everyone notice it.

I think Firaxis' development plan for Civ5 has changed, but my bet is Civ5 was intended to have more (or at least two) leaders from some civilizations. Why?

There are two clues to this. It might be overly analysing (can't spell), but I don't think this wasn't intentional:

• In Civilopedia there are definitely space for two leader heads.
• UAs aren't civilization but leader specific. When in Civilopedia you click on a civ it doesn't show you the civs UA - you have to "choose" which leader you're interested in.

What do you think of this theory. Does it hold water (that's also an English expression, right?).

I don't doubt this, but I'm not sure the point. They were prudent in making a plan that allowed them to make a decision after more of the gameplay and other factors had been firmed up. Then, they made the decision. It had to go one way or the other.

I would rather see multiple leaders with different personalities for a dozen civs than the two dozen civs of which I sometimes haven't even heard of before this game. They could also make those personalities swing a lot closer to what they're like instead of what we have now. So it'd be "Look, Russia Catherine, let's prosper together" vs "oh damn Stalin, build an army now!"

That would be interesting, you could have:

America: Washington and Lincoln
England: Elizabeth and Winston Churchill
Russia: Catherine and Stalin
Mongolia: Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan
Netherlands: William and Wilhelmina

It's what they did in previous versions of civ, so it would make sense that they planned on the possibility, but found that the 3D leaders were much more work than anticipated.

Previous version singular. It's what they did in Civ4.

Civ5 is much better balanced than Civ4. A good trait is offset by weaker units. They're often designed to have synergy together. All that would be messed up with another civ with a different UA but the same UU/UB/UIs.

Plus, there's quite a few that have no connection to the civ right now that would have to be changed: England, Germany, Polynesia, Sweden, Poland

I think it's more than old habits from Civ4 die hard, especially since the game was originally tested based on Civ4's game engine.

bbbt said:

It's what they did in previous versions of civ, so it would make sense that they planned on the possibility, but found that the 3D leaders were much more work than anticipated.

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Do the animated leader screens contribute so much to the game that we're happy to see them constrain game design in this way? (Assuming for the sake of argument that the OP is plausible)

The reason there won't be new leaders is exactly because we don't care about diplo screens after seeing them a few times but they are the most expensive and time consuming part of creating a new civ.

I think this should be something for Civ6 not in a changing the UA, units, or feel of a civ but have an aggressive expansionist leader and a more peaceful leader looking to win other ways (culture, science, world leader, etc.). So say, if you are playing and you run into France with Napoleon you better build up your army but if you run into France with Louis XVI you still have to watch out but he is not going to be as aggressive.

Louis XXIV said:

Previous version singular. It's what they did in Civ4.

Civ5 is much better balanced than Civ4. A good trait is offset by weaker units. They're often designed to have synergy together. All that would be messed up with another civ with a different UA but the same UU/UB/UIs.

Plus, there's quite a few that have no connection to the civ right now that would have to be changed: England, Germany, Polynesia, Sweden, Poland

I think it's more than old habits from Civ4 die hard, especially since the game was originally tested based on Civ4's game engine.

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I know the 3D effects are so much harder to make than any other things like buildings and units.

However, is a new civilization really that much more interesting than an new leader?

I think there should be one unique unit or building for each civilization, and one for each leader. As an example of this I've often thought of England as a good example:

Elisabeth: UU, Man-o-war
Victoria: UU, Ship of the line
Churchill: UU, Spitfire
Henry IV (or something): UU, longbowman

Could be buildings or unique improvements aswell. Then they of course would have their own unique ability and personalities, and then an unique more for England altogether. For instance the stock exchange which I think it was in Civ4 or something.

Now they are barely alike. Only the name, but you get the historical feeling with a greater chance of encountering bigger civilizations if, say, more leaders give more chances of being in the game.

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I'm sure they allowed for the possibility in the beginning, but I don't think it's a thing that's going to be added to the game at this point.

If there are new leaders I don't think that they should each have a distinct UA. Doing that would make Firaxis run out of good UAs really fast. After all, they would need to come up with 86 different Unique Abilities, and some are already a bit iffy with just 43.

Rather, if there are multiple leaders per Civ in the next game, I hope they mix Civ 5's UAs with Civ 4's traits system. For instance, America is lead by Washington and Lincoln. Both of them have the Manifest Destiny UA, but Washington has the expansive and charismatic traits, whereas Lincoln has the philosophical and charismatic traits.

As for the leaderscreens, they wouldn't necessarily have to create entirely new leaderscreens for each leader. All that would need to be done is to create the background and the leader separately; the background is constant, it is always the background for that Civ's leaderscreen, but the leader in it changes depending on which you choose. Of course, this would also mean that the background would have to make sense for both leaders to be standing in, which might be harder for leaders with a longer time-span between each other (Don't want Queen Elizabeth I in an industrial background, yeah?).

Talcove said:

If there are new leaders I don't think that they should each have a distinct UA. Doing that would make Firaxis run out of good UAs really fast. After all, they would need to come up with 86 different Unique Abilities, and some are already a bit iffy with just 43.

Rather, if there are multiple leaders per Civ in the next game, I hope they mix Civ 5's UAs with Civ 4's traits system. For instance, America is lead by Washington and Lincoln. Both of them have the Manifest Destiny UA, but Washington has the expansive and charismatic traits, whereas Lincoln has the philosophical and charismatic traits.

As for the leaderscreens, they wouldn't necessarily have to create entirely new leaderscreens for each leader. All that would need to be done is to create the background and the leader separately; the background is constant, it is always the background for that Civ's leaderscreen, but the leader in it changes depending on which you choose. Of course, this would also mean that the background would have to make sense for both leaders to be standing in, which might be harder for leaders with a longer time-span between each other (Don't want Queen Elizabeth I in an industrial background, yeah?).

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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.

Sporally said:

I know the 3D effects are so much harder to make than any other things like buildings and units.

However, is a new civilization really that much more interesting than an new leader?

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The number of "which civilizations do you want to see?" vs. "which leaders do you want see?" threads would argue "very much so." There are always civs people want to see added; no one's clamouring to add Bleda of the Huns.

I think there should be one unique unit or building for each civilization, and one for each leader. As an example of this I've often thought of England as a good example:

Elisabeth: UU, Man-o-war
Victoria: UU, Ship of the line
Churchill: UU, Spitfire
Henry IV (or something): UU, longbowman

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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.

Could be buildings or unique improvements aswell. Then they of course would have their own unique ability and personalities, and then an unique more for England altogether. For instance the stock exchange which I think it was in Civ4 or something.

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Dog soldiers and "fast workers" were in Civ IV too. Civ IV mangled uniques even more than Civ V as far as plausibility and historical accuracy are concerned. Stock exchanges aren't unique to England, aren't particularly characteristic of England, and aren't an English invention (the immediate precursor to modern stock exchanges was introduced to England by the Dutch).

Now they are barely alike.

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Which wholly defeats the point. If you want something with a different personality, a different UA and different uniques, add a new civilization - it's the same thing.

Only the name, but you get the historical feeling with a greater chance of encountering bigger civilizations if, say, more leaders give more chances of being in the game.

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If all you want is the chance to include major civs, why not just select those civs as AI opponents when you set up your game?

I would rather see multiple leaders with different personalities for a dozen civs than the two dozen civs of which I sometimes haven't even heard of before this game.

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I presume that's an exaggeration. The only civ I hadn't heard of at all before they were added was the Shoshone, and I believe they're moderately well-known to Americans - Songhai were just a name, but I had vaguely heard of them.

Wodan said:

I don't doubt this, but I'm not sure the point. They were prudent in making a plan that allowed them to make a decision after more of the gameplay and other factors had been firmed up. Then, they made the decision. It had to go one way or the other.

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I think this about sums it up. They definitely didn't have everything set in stone until a very late point, as we know the art direction changed very close to release and a bunch of images were borrowed from elsewhere with only minor changes to them.

And like the quote says, they probably left the decision open until either release, or even until the planning of the first expansion. Whether they ever planned to have multiple leaders and abandoned it or not, I don't think I could say, but it certainly seems as though they wanted to leave the possibility open, perhaps even until sometime after release.

Ultimately, the main reason I think they didn't go down the multiple-leaders route is one that many people bring up: this time around, they animated and voiced every leader. That's the decision I think that sealed the fate on possibly having multiple leaders: once they decided to add more detail (and time/effort) on each individual leader, they probably realized that they may as well focus on making a wider range of individual civs rather than just add leaders to existing ones, since animating and voicing leaders is probably the lion's share of the work that goes into each civ.

Some civs probably don't deserve a second leader, like...

Zulus (plus there's really no peaceful leaders among the Zulu kings)

Huns (Bleda?, meh)

Shoshone (maybe, Washakie may turn out similar to Pocatello)

Venice (I can't think of another Doge, plus they wear the same costume for the most part)

Certainly Firaxis was trying to choose between more than one Doge, so it might be possible.

The costume thing is true. That being said, a second Venetian ability where you can found more than one city would be dramatically different.

I am of the opinion that more civs to play is better than, more leaders of the same civs. Why just take a new personality with a unique ability, when I can get new UU/UB/UI as well? I would have to say the DLC civ kind of prove that point. They could have made another leader of the same old civ but instead made up new civs all together.

SYKOJAK said:

I am of the opinion that more civs to play is better than, more leaders of the same civs. Why just take a new personality with a unique ability, when I can get new UU/UB/UI as well? I would have to say the DLC civ kind of prove that point. They could have made another leader of the same old civ but instead made up new civs all together.

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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.

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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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, (unless UA would be different for each leader), then they would not no longer be "unique".