Does the Leader Make the Civ?

[OnceAKing]

I know that there alot of examples of Civs in which the Civ Leader doesn't actually overlap with his or her Civs defining characteristics for example Bismark and the fact that his Civ can convert Barbarians.

However for the most part do you think that a Civ and there characteristics are defined by there leader?

In other words if the Civ remained but there was a different leader, would the Civ attributes remain?

For example Shaka is the defining reason the Zulu have Impi and have a flanking bonus. Caesar brings the Legion, and the Power of the capital.

But what if we could lead Rome as Constantine? Would the unique unit be different? I assume Rome would be dramatically more religious and dogmatic right? What do you guys think? Are the characteristics defined by the Leader?

 

[Uzael36]

Going back to Civ 4, when you had a choice between leaders for the same civ, their characteristics changed with the leader choice. So I can only assume their the civ's characteristics are highly dependent on the leader they chose, but that isn't to say that is all they used to define the nation. I don't think Napoleon has anything to do with France's UA.

 

[OnceAKing]

that's a good point. He no longer really reflects the flavor of his Civ at all.

I guess it really is dependent on the direction they decide to take in every expansion. I'm assuming if all the components of BNW were in play when some of the Civs were created, either the characteristics or the Leadership would have been changed.

Why don't you think leadership can be changed between civs? On the development side, is it effectively doubling the number of Civs you have to create and balance?

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

1. Even though it takes only 5 weeks to create a leader, it still is a long time to create an individual leader screen.

However, it is possible that multiplate leaders were scrapped as the Civilopedia and I think on some level even in XML multiple leaders were possible.

The unique units are tied in civilization.xml but the traits are tied to the leaders.xml

The Civilopedia has Civs seperate and has "Leaders :" which suggested multiple leaders.

 

[zukenft]

well, what uniques a civ have depends on the developers that designed the civ, no? so it's up to them, even if sometimes it doesn't make sense.

I think in game the 'defining characteristics' of a civ is in the leaders' personality. That is, the flavors as written in the xml/leaders folder.
for example, we hate hiawatha because he keep plopping cities, not because the mohawk warrior or the longhouse is OP. If you mod a civ to have the same flavors as hiawatha, that civ will be another "hiawatha", even if the uniques are different.

 

[OnceAKing]

1. Even though it takes only 5 weeks to create a leader, it still is a long time to create an individual leader screen.

However, it is possible that multiplate leaders were scrapped as the Civilopedia and I think on some level even in XML multiple leaders were possible.

The unique units are tied in civilization.xml but the traits are tied to the leaders.xml

The Civilopedia has Civs seperate and has "Leaders :" which suggested multiple leaders.

You know that's a really interesting point about the leader screen. I wonder if you surveyed both Civ fanatics and professional reviewers. What would be more preferred? The polished animated leader screens or double the number of leaders available?

Its an interesting trade off because it does add infinitely to the presentation of the game and separates it from alot of indy games and modded games. However on the flip side it seems to always be the reason we can't have more of anything in the game. And in the end is it really worth it then?


Also I've never been involved with developing at any level whatsoever. But Civ is one of the highest selling games of all time. Its publisher 2K is obviously one of the biggest and most influential. And on top of all that Civ is a prestigious game to have on your resume. Why in the world can't they OUTSOURCE that to another studio? Once they've decided on the direction of the Civ. Can't they pay another studio to create that part simultaenously. I'm sure there's other studio's who can nail the animation aspect just as good as Civ nails the gameplay

 

[Aaron90495]

You know that's a really interesting point about the leader screen. I wonder if you surveyed both Civ fanatics and professional reviewers. What would be more preferred? The polished animated leader screens or double the number of leaders available?



Its an interesting trade off because it does add infinitely to the presentation of the game and separates it from alot of indy games and modded games. However on the flip side it seems to always be the reason we can't have more of anything in the game. And in the end is it really worth it then?





Also I've never been involved with developing at any level whatsoever. But Civ is one of the highest selling games of all time. Its publisher 2K is obviously one of the biggest and most influential. And on top of all that Civ is a prestigious game to have on your resume. Why in the world can't they OUTSOURCE that to another studio? Once they've decided on the direction of the Civ. Can't they pay another studio to create that part simultaenously. I'm sure there's other studio's who can nail the animation aspect just as good as Civ nails the gameplay

This was a big problem with developing Civ V, but I believe I've read somewhere that Firaxis's methods for creating the leader screen are more efficient now and it shouldn't be a problem in the future. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe part of the problem is the methods were developed in 2008 or so and have surely been improved upon since then.

With regards to your last paragraph, I completely agree that that would've been a good idea. However, I think Firaxis likes to control exactly how the game turns out and wouldn't wanna risk it not being exactly how they wanted by handing over part of development to another studio.

 

[LoneRebel]

I've never thought that a civ's UA is defined by its leader, even though the game portrays it that way. To me, I see it like this: a civ's UA is a characteristic of the civ itself and not its leader. There are some UAs that fit the leader more than others, and there are some UAs that don't fit the leader very well at all. In the case of UAs that do fit the leader, I just consider it coincidence that they do.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Consider this - the civs' UAs, in the code, are tied to the leader, not the civ itself, although in turn the leader is tied to the civ. The effect of this is that getting rid of the leader would get rid of the UA as well. (Which actually would make the game crash, but ignoring that...)

Now, you could easily make so that a civilization uses a different leader, and just have that leader use the default leader's UA, e.g. you could get rid of Augustus and replace him with Constantine, while giving Augustus's UA to Constantine. But where's the fun in that? Now there truly is no point to switching leaders because no matter which one you use, you get the same benefits. IMO all leaders should have different UAs - and the effect of that is that Same Civ + Different Leader = Different Playstyle (or in other words, gamebreaking). As long as no two leaders have the same UA, I think the leader does define the civ.

If you really want to see some good examples of "the leader makes the civ", check out JFD's Alternate Leader civs. (Post #2 of this thread) Carthage, for example, is totally different when lead by Hannibal than by Dido.

 

[Uzael36]

Consider this - the civs' UAs, in the code, are tied to the leader, not the civ itself, although in turn the leader is tied to the civ. The effect of this is that getting rid of the leader would get rid of the UA as well. (Which actually would make the game crash, but ignoring that...)

Now, you could easily make so that a civilization uses a different leader, and just have that leader use the default leader's UA, e.g. you could get rid of Augustus and replace him with Constantine, while giving Augustus's UA to Constantine. But where's the fun in that? Now there truly is no point to switching leaders because no matter which one you use, you get the same benefits. IMO all leaders should have different UAs - and the effect of that is that Same Civ + Different Leader = Different Playstyle (or in other words, gamebreaking). As long as no two leaders have the same UA, I think the leader does define the civ.

If you really want to see some good examples of "the leader makes the civ", check out JFD's Alternate Leader civs. (Post #2 of this thread) Carthage, for example, is totally different when lead by Hannibal than by Dido.

I Civ 4, choosing a leader gave different uniques. By the way they set things up in Civ 5, it appears they considered doing the same in Civ 5. While it is true that they may have picked some UA's based on the civ and not the leader, they still tied it to the leader.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

I Civ 4, choosing a leader gave different uniques.

No it didn't. Picking Napoleon over Louis XIV, for example, still gives you the UU of a Musketeer and UB of a Salon. Unless you mean different leader traits...?

 

[LoneRebel]

Yes, the fact that UAs are tied to the leader and not to the civ indicates that they may have originally intended to have multiple leaders per civ, but did not pursue that idea.

Of course, if we have mods that add new leaders for existing civs, with their own UAs, while at the same time changing the UAs of existing leaders to be more fitting to them, then I'm all up for that.

 

[Uzael36]

No it didn't. Picking Napoleon over Louis XIV, for example, still gives you the UU of a Musketeer and UB of a Salon. Unless you mean different leader traits...?

Yes, traits. The traits are similar to the unique ability used in Civ 5.

 

[NoirSuede]

You know that's a really interesting point about the leader screen. I wonder if you surveyed both Civ fanatics and professional reviewers. What would be more preferred? The polished animated leader screens or double the number of leaders available?

Its an interesting trade off because it does add infinitely to the presentation of the game and separates it from alot of indy games and modded games. However on the flip side it seems to always be the reason we can't have more of anything in the game. And in the end is it really worth it then?


Also I've never been involved with developing at any level whatsoever. But Civ is one of the highest selling games of all time. Its publisher 2K is obviously one of the biggest and most influential. And on top of all that Civ is a prestigious game to have on your resume. Why in the world can't they OUTSOURCE that to another studio? Once they've decided on the direction of the Civ. Can't they pay another studio to create that part simultaenously. I'm sure there's other studio's who can nail the animation aspect just as good as Civ nails the gameplay

Maybe they don't want to repeat the disaster that is Deus Ex : Human Revolution's boss fights ? (the boss fights were outsourced to a different company and it was easily the worst part of that game).