The need for more differences between civilaztions and their leaders

Through a historic point of view the game is unfair. It gives all leaders only one special bonus, and no penalties. I suggest greater differences between leaders are necessary to make the game more historically accurate and challenging.
If you want to win playing as a less known or a half barbaric tribe it should be made possible but much more difficult, you'd have to be a good player to accomplish this!
This game puts semi barbarian tribes on equal terms with historically great nations and leaders who contributed a lot more into world civilization's cultural, military, industrial, commercial and artistic advancement.
So, if they insist in having nations like the Huns included in the game make sure they:
1. cannot build great wonders- the idea of Huns building wonders of the world just like the Greeks, Egyptians, Americans or Chinese is absurd!
2. these nations cannot build units which they never used in reality like knights-they are European!
3 develop a different tech tree, building and unit tree and apply them to tribes like: Zulu, Huns or Iroquois

Lastly, I suggest more bonuses for cultural tribe's leaders and/or cultural penalties for barbaric ones, meaning that for these tribes the best chance of achieving victory would be through military conquest.

The original game of Civilization only included the greatest leaders and nations of history, players keep demanding new nations to be included the game, go right ahead, add them, it adds to the overall flavour of the game, but do not make the new tribes and leaders being on equal terms with history's greatest!, it is just unfair!

Ps. Civ6 will see such new nations like Congo included and of course we all remember how the grand Congolese army defeated the Zulu on the plains of Lusaka using their glorious iron clad Knights supported by waves of deadly accurate crossbowmen.
Or when the Huns constructed the amazing Pyramids, or when the Shoshone erected the one and only Great Library, baloney!

It's a GAME (how many times do I have to say this here?). If you don't make the leader on a par with the others, no one will pick the civ.

all right, how about this: Recently, playing as Rome, my Legions got their butts kicked by some "magic" sword wielding Indonesians! this kind of stuff makes my want to smash my laptop to pieces!
How about just on higher difficulty levels, make the original civs and their leaders way better, make it way more difficult and challenging for the 3rd world, barbaric and second tier civs to defeat Greece or England, for example.
They want to be represented in the game?, go ahead, the more the merrier! but not on even par with Augustus, Frederick or Ramesses and their respective countries.

Again, I think you are missing the point - no more weird than your legions morphing into a tank or bomber.

It's a game where you're playing through alternate histories. There's a mods out there if you want to play something else.

daft said:

Recently, playing as Rome, my Legions got their butts kicked by some "magic" sword wielding Indonesians! this kind of stuff makes my want to smash my laptop to pieces!

Click to expand...

Civilization V is basically Anachronism: The Game and it's because of that, that this game is so popular. JFD is developing something that might be to your tastes however.

What you raise is interesting.

Title of the topic : no, there shouldn't be any difference from a civilization to the other, aside from just leaders and city names, for a reason I've explained in another topic.

Sub-civs : I do believe we should be able to play as barbarians for a lot of fun. These would indeed be a separated faction as they are nowadays, but a lot more consistent as to be able to be played by humans. They would be the Zergs of the game, playing differently according to the choices of your Social Policies for example, which should have a lot more consequences on the way you play, not just being anecdotic rough bonuses/maluses.

Historical accuracy : I do believe we need some historical accuracy as to the game elements to ring a bell in our head. The point is : to make things familiar, but with a possibility for things to unfold faceciously differently, which is the point to the re-write history. Now the point is how much accurate elements do we inject. I do believe that there are no limits in accurate elements we can inject, because it's still a game, not a simulation, and we always could make events unfold differently. I also find misplaced and lazy that Iroquois can build knights, but I don't know how to solve this. Maybe nerfing some civs may sound too unfair precisely ? At least they should be able to build horse archers and cavalry, as they learned to use occidental warfare.

Again, makes no sense. There is no great civ that lasted from thousands of years BC to today. Having an minor civ play with modern tools is no less realistic than giving Rome a bomber, or giving America an ancient tool. The civs are no more than different profiles.

Still, it's not fair to less aggressive and more cultured nations of history to have to compete with virtually barbarian tribes like the Huns in all aspects of the game, including having to fight off their very dangerous military aggression-which is historically accurate, but having to compete with them equally on Great Wonder building basis, in technological research? this is where the game goes wrong, making such barbaric tribes much more fun to play as for their military prowess, at the same time making them almost completely equal competitor at city and wonder building, tech research and all other aspects of the game.
I think that having nomadic barbarians in the game is absolutely necessary, however, DO NOT MAKE THEM BEING ABLE TO COMPETE WITH THE CIVILIZED TRIBES(especially the finest ones) IN THE NON MILITARILY EQUAL BASIS! it is just not fair to see Byzantium, Rome, US or India culturally dominated by such tribes.

For example: playing as Greece, having the Huns as neighbours, I don't just have to look out for their military aggression, I also have to watch them beat me to Hellenistic Wonders of the world, like Temple of Artemis or the Oracle, although the first aspect is perfectly understandable, the second should not be allowed.
The only way to win as Huns should be through military conquest or dominance.

So basically you want to impose your value judgements (e.g. "the finest ones") on the game and feel hurt that things don't match your vision of how they should be.

Interesting to see those legions driving those tanks.

I believe the OP of this thread misunderstands the basic premise of the game. While I haven't played civ 5, I have played civ2-4. If you go back and play civ4, start a new game and watch the intro, listen to Leonard Nimoy's narration he speaks of the evolution of the earth and its life. He speaks of the development of man, the organization of family, village, the tribe. All that is needed is a great leader who will unite the tribes and build a civilization that will stand the test of time. Civilization is a -what if scenario -generator. There are a multitude of tribes to choose from, a to z. Aztec to Zulu. You choose one and a leader, then you are burdened with responsibility of guiding your tribe toward nationhood. Building cities, wonders, managing a nation thru peace or war. Is it realistic that the American nation can exist at 4000bc? No. Is it realistic that the Romans can last till the 20th century and build aircraft? No. But it doesn't matter, this game is a what if scenario. What if you were the leader of a tribe? What would you accomplish as your nations leader. To impose restrictions on civs based on real life history would sap all the fun out of the game and leave it unplayable. If the basic nature of the game bothers you play one of the many mods that seeks to replicate real life history. A level playing field is offered to major tribes and minor tribes alike. To compare the Huns to the Greeks or any other major tribe is irrelevant. In real life no tribe in pre-Columbian north America qualified as being what modern people would classify as a true civilization. But this game offers the opportunity for us to do so. I am quite pleased that over the years the creators of the civ franchise have offered lesser know civs for us to play with. Imo I would like even more choices. To make complaints' that a civ that was from our perspective was nothing more than barbarians competing with historically great nations is a waste of time.

The main areas of Civ 5 you are adressing here are:
Military
Technology
Culture
Wonders

In terms of military in most cases, a Legion will beat a Kris Swordsmen. If the Kris Swordsman is behind a river, on a hill, in a forest or well promoted, it has a better chance.
You want the barbarian civs to be better militarily? Keshiks are widely recognised the best units in the game and Horse Archers aren't bad either. This is the only thing I understand in your argument but it is already represented in the game through UU/UAs.

You want the warlike civs to be behind technologically? Why? What use is an Impi ingame against artillery? Pictish Warriors against Knights? How is that useful? The Mongols historically had better organization and logistics than ANY army anywhere in the world until Napoleon. The Celts were just as advanced as the Romans were, possibly more, they just had a lack of unity.

Culture can't be measured unless it influences other cultures. I'll admit that the Mongols gained a lot from Chinese/Arabian/Persian culture but they were still distinct people. In the same way, you think Rome was culturally unique? It was a blend of Italic/Greek/Phoenician and Celtic later which when added to Persian gives you your again "advanced" Byzantines.

A big part of your vision is historically accurate wonders. If that becomes a part of civ, I'll stop playing. Why not get rid of al map types other than Earth with historical starting locations and times. The twist is you don't research technology, it just happens according to history. You chose to play as Greece? Well done, you invade Persia in a couple of turns but then split into loads of city-states before becoming Roman. You chose Babylon? Unlucky, the game finishes almost as soon as it begins. What part of What if? scenario is so hard to understand?

While the warlike civ is building units to got war, they aren't building wonders anyway. I've been beaten to wonders by Greece, Egypt, China, Japan, the Netherlands and France but never the Huns, the Zulus or the Aztecs. Did you have a Tundra heavy start with no forest or hills?

It is true that so far the Huns have only made my life miserable by the way of war. I still think there is a chance of making different Victory Conditions possible for specific nations, perhaps on Earth maps only, or scenarios. Example: the Huns could win only by Conquest or Military Domination( percentage of owned cities and armies(army strengths) in the world).
Let us start discussing a different aspect of the game:
The need for much more refined differences in characteristics/personalities of each of the great leaders. In CIV5 they don't differ much. Like I wrote in the other thread (about leader traits) the game should go back to further diversifying each leader by the way of traits. Some leaders could be opportunistic, meaning they'd attack you when in advantageous position, some might be erratic-you'd never know what they'd come up with, others ruthless, others people's leaders-meaning they care for populace's happiness, others artistic. also explorers by nature, agriculturalists, seafarers, colonialists, scientific, great politicians or fanatical spiritualists, even space junkies-getting a bonus in space race.
Every leader would have from 1 to 3 or 4 of these bonus traits, if they were really good in that department throughout their reign it should be recognized by the game.
This way every leader would be different, each with their own winning or losing agenda.
This was in use, to a point in civ 3 and civ 4, just like one of the previous posts mentioned, we need to get back to that, I think.

Instead of each leader only having four of these, why don't they get them all and then a value to how much it affects them so then while Catherine and Bismarck are both expansionists, Catherine was more so gets a higher value. Maybe this already exists as a part of the AI coding (hint - it doeshttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-HV6HQ6q5Erc/Ud7eW6tVcEI/AAAAAAAABEY/_cYB7VoufBU/s3000/BNW%2520Leaders%2520Spreadsheet.png)

Yes, exactly, rank them in every aspects of personality and leadership skill pertaining to all traits used in the game. If they get a score above average in the particular trait then they would get a type of a bonus related to that trait.
I've got Attila list of possible traits:
1. Ruthless (more dangerous than Aggressive)- would have to give some sort of an attacking bonus for units, also mean that anytime he is in favourable position he will attack other civs every time. Also this trait could mean that anytime a city is captured after a specific number of attacking units are destroyed prior to the capture, the city would be razed to the ground.
2. Militarist - military bonus(es)
3. Archer - bonus for archery(including Horse Archer) units
4. Charismatic - higher unit morale
7 Cavalier - bonus for mounted units
I'm quite sure he wasn't Imperialistic, probably not even Expansionistic(lesser Imperialist).