Montezuma and why a great opportunity with leaders was missed by Firaxis.

Montezuma isn`t my most liked Leader in Civ 5. I never use him and I always end up hating him.

But he`s the best leader in the game. Y`know why?

He`s interactive. Once you start negotiating with him you realise that when you say something he does not approve of, the people in the background shout their disapproval. when you say something he likes the people cheer, etc, etc. You always feel a little intimidated because you realise he isn`t just a man alone, but a civilization!

Montezuma is the only leader that has a reactive dynamic screen. every other leader screen is seriously boring with minor movements in the background (like birds flying or clouds moving).

Now why couldn`t firaxis make the Elizabeth screen have murmurs of approval or anger from her advisers in the background depending on what you say? how come Alexander is all on his own, no other warriors to cheer his cause? Why is the Japan Diamyo alone in a green field with no advisers to nod sagely in approval?

Firaxis should have made more effort here like they did with Montezuma.

This would hog so much memory to an already questionable optimized game, while it is great, it serves no useful purpose in the game other than a pretty aesthetics.

That's a good observation OP, you are right. But you should try playing as Aztecs, they are great!

TheKingOfBigOz said:

This would hog so much memory to an already questionable optimized game, while it is great, it serves no useful purpose in the game other than a pretty aesthetics.

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It might be aesthetics but that is a part of Civ that makes it so great. For example, I really miss a city view, palace building, WLTKD and civil disorder in cities, newspaper articles etc. All these things were originally in Civ1 but sadly not now.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

This would hog so much memory to an already questionable optimized game, while it is great, it serves no useful purpose in the game other than a pretty aesthetics.

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I don't think it would, because these sound files are not continuously or concurrently called unless you are talking to a specific leader. An extra audio call isn't going to be particularly memory intensive, especially when compared to the rest of the game itself.

sun8119 said:

It might be aesthetics but that is a part of Civ that makes it so great. For example, I really miss a city view, palace building, WLTKD and civil disorder in cities, newspaper articles etc. All these things were originally in Civ1 but sadly not now.

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And of course, the advisors from Civ II.

Well, there was the concept video back before Civ V was released that showed a Bismarck with some advisers behind him strategizing over a map or something.

Doktor Vic Tim said:

Well, there was the concept video back before Civ V was released that showed a Bismarck with some advisers behind him strategizing over a map or something.

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And concept art for Elizabeth showing other people in the court, too, correct?

Anyway, I do hope that there is an effort to bring some more 'immersion' (either like this or through a better city view, etc.) in Civ VI; I agree with the OP that it really makes things more fun.

This would be great for the newest, most powerful hardware and software you could buy, but if they were going to do that people with less money wouldn't really be able to enjoy the game, no? I doubt my laptop could handle that much memory being taken up, along with the animations and what not. If Firaxis was going to do that, I'd at least like a pop-up before installation starts asking if I would like to download the irrelevant extra files so I could save space and optimize my experience.

LyricalAssassin said:

This would be great for the newest, most powerful hardware and software you could buy, but if they were going to do that people with less money wouldn't really be able to enjoy the game, no? I doubt my laptop could handle that much memory being taken up, along with the animations and what not. If Firaxis was going to do that, I'd at least like a pop-up before installation starts asking if I would like to download the irrelevant extra files so I could save space and optimize my experience.

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Not necessarily. When BNW was new, I remember Firaxis saying something to the effect that the leaderscreen graphics had been massively improved from when vanilla came out, and so were substantially more efficiently optimized (which can be confirmed pretty easily by comparing the leaderscreens of, say, Suleiman and Shaka). As such, if they were set up properly to lag less, there'd be really no reason not to have fancier leaderscreens.

Socratatus said:

Montezuma isn`t my most liked Leader in Civ 5. I never use him and I always end up hating him.

But he`s the best leader in the game. Y`know why?
...

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e.g. playing him with epic speed, on a jungle pangea map with raging barbarians.
Finishing honour payed for itself and in the midgame I had lots of upgraded Jaguars (now selfhealing infantry) running through the jungle giving lots of culture and gold. Try to keep them fighting to net maximal profits.

Doktor Vic Tim said:

Well, there was the concept video back before Civ V was released that showed a Bismarck with some advisers behind him strategizing over a map or something.

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Really? So they did think about it. What a pity they didn`t implement it and I hear it`s the same for Beyond Earth as well which puts me right off it.

Also as to others saying it would be too much cpu overhead well it isn`t for Montezuma. They could just add reactive sound files (sound does a lot to add atmosphere), but if they did add extra graphic advisers then it could be a toggle. Have the `extra` stuff toggleable to save on some people`s pcs.

It seems small, but the realistic leader screen was actually why I bought Civ5 when I saw it in a `let`s play` on utube. I like good strategy games but I also like immersion and I can`t see why immersion and strategy can`t work togther. The closer I can get to being `there` while working out how to make my people happier, the better. I miss a lot of this immersion like Advisers and troops marching through a conquered city.

It seems, as with so many games these days, we have taken two steps back for every one step forward.

Heck, I`d even pay for a good improved Leaders DLC for Civ5, even though i`m not a fan of DLCs.
Thanks for the input, chaps.

Yeah, they talk about this in the Behind-the-scenes video that's included with the Limited Edition.
For Caesar, they wanted to have him surrounded by senators, walking around behind him in the background. The budget wouldn't allow for that much animation though, so they cut all non-leader characters.

Now that they've gotten better at animating the leader screens, I could see them trying to work this idea into Civ VI. Hopefully their budget has gone up as well, seeing how much Civ V has sold.

ToothedBomb said:

Yeah, they talk about this in the Behind-the-scenes video that's included with the Limited Edition.
For Caesar, they wanted to have him surrounded by senators, walking around behind him in the background. The budget wouldn't allow for that much animation though, so they cut all non-leader characters.

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I see. thanks for that news. What a pity,

Now that they've gotten better at animating the leader screens, I could see them trying to work this idea into Civ VI. Hopefully their budget has gone up as well, seeing how much Civ V has sold.

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Well, if they do manage it I will almost certainly buy. CIV games need more immersion without losing depth, especially since we invest so much time into each game.

I particularly love how dismissive Nebuchadnezzar is. He seems too pre-occupied with his own insanity. His interactions are some of my favorite too.

I have always felt that Monty had the best graphics too with the fire and everything looking really cool.

Montezuma sounds kind of familiar to me.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

This would hog so much memory to an already questionable optimized game, while it is great, it serves no useful purpose in the game other than a pretty aesthetics.

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Playing an audio sample would hog so much memory? It's 2015, my friend, not 1988. Computers can handle it.

And seems to me, making players feel excited and immersed is as useful as purposes get.

But I can see Firaxis not wanting to allocate resources to it. They're pretty conscientious about that, especially relative to other video game companies.