Duplicate leaders?

[DaveShack]

Do we want duplicate leaders to be on?

When on, all teams get their 1st choice of leader. It could be boring to see the same heads more than once on the startup and diplo screens, but there isn't really any risk of confusion because we can use custom team names to distinguish them.

When off, a tiebreaker has to be used if multiple teams choose the same leader. Worst case, luck of the draw could stick a team with their 5th place choice of leader. The game is more "pure" and doesn't suffer the aesthetic issues of seeing the same leaderhead.

I think the positives of allowing duplicates outweigh the negatives, which for me are eye candy stuff anyway.

 

[Sullla]

It's incredibly easy to set up the game either way, FYI. Let's run this thread as an informal straw poll to see what the general feeling is. If overall sentiment is strongly in favor of allowing or not allowing duplicate leaders/civs, that will help simplify the setup process.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Definitely go for duplicate leaders. Civs will have their own unique identity anyway, so no-one will get confused. Let's allow everyone to have their 1st choice of leader.

 

[General_W]

If we could all sit down in a room together and argue over who gets to be what leader - I'd vote for no duplicates.

This is how my friends and I do it at LAN parties... because my second or third choice depends on what Civs others are picking.

Since we can't practically do that for this MTDG - (and it's too bad, it sounds like it'd be fun to get everyone here in the same room for a little geek argument and haggling ) - I think it'd be better to allow duplicates.

At least, that's my personal opinion.
Let every team get their first choice.

 

[Karhu]

I'll be the lone voice to suggest NO to duplicate leaders.

 

[classical_hero]

We should not have duplicates since there are only five players so we should submit a list of civs and leaders

 

[Karhu]

You're my "hero"?

 

[oyzar]

Duplicate leaders should be allowed imo. It is unfair for someone to be left with a different leader than what they want just because it shouldn't be on. It is not like having the same leader would lead the teams to play the same anyways. Also @ General_W, part of the point is that people should not know the leaders of the others when chosing.

 

[Niklas]

I definitely vote no duplicates, since I feel gameplay is only half the fun here, and the "eyecandy" is actually a fairly large part of the other, roleplaying, aspect.

We are only 5 teams, and likely within each team there are plenty of different wishes for leaders. Thus a team ending up with their 3rd choice will likely just mean that they will end up with a leader that many of them liked, even if not everyone had it as their top choice. It is inconceivable to me that any team could not pick out 5 leaders they would actually like playing, and thus not care overly much if they get 1st or 3rd or even 5th. So saying it is "unfair" for someone to get a different leader than they "want" doesn't really make sense to me.

In other words, unlike DaveShack I think the benefits of having no duplicates far outweighs the negatives, which I actually consider non-existant.

In the Civ3 MTDG, each team submitted an ordered list with 5 choices. Then the decision process was:
1) Those teams that have chosen a unique leader as their 1st, give them that leader.
2) For all duplicate choices, roll the dice to see who of them gets their choice.
3) For the teams that did not get their 1st choice, move to the next viable alternative in the list.
4) Rinse and repeat.

I think this is the model we should adopt.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I definitely vote no duplicates, since I feel gameplay is only half the fun here, and the "eyecandy" is actually a fairly large part of the other, roleplaying, aspect.

[...]

In other words, unlike DaveShack I think the benefits of having no duplicates far outweighs the negatives, which I actually consider non-existant.

What exactly are the benefits of having duplicates? There are almost none, as far as I can see. It is very important to note that in civ-to-civ diplomacy in multiplayer, NO PICTURE appears in the leaderhead spot. Thus the only time you might ever see a leader's face is in the F4 screen (in low quality, I might add). That's literally about it. You don't see them close-up, ever.

Team colours will be automatically changed if two teams select the same leader, so there will be no confusion there. Plus, empires will be labelled with completely different names anyway.

So, is that one picture in the F4 screen really worth restricting teams from picking the leader that the majority of their players want?

 

[peter grimes]

I'm against duplicates. I don't think the game will be very interesting if three of the teams have the same traits, same starting techs, and same UUs and UBs.

 

[oyzar]

There is enough variance in the game already that we really don't need to force people to chose something they otherwise wouldn't chose for the sake of a bit variance...

 

[Renata]

I don't like the idea of duplicates. For all we know, we could wind up all picking the same leader! And that would just be weird. You could forget about roleplaying, for one, for anyone who's interested in that.

Besides that, I'm perfectly happy playing any of the civs that our team has under consideration; its no big deal to me if we don't get our first choice.

 

[Lord Parkin]

I don't like the idea of duplicates. For all we know, we could wind up all picking the same leader! And that would just be weird.

That'd be incredibly unlikely. People have such differing preferences and strategies that I'd be surprised if even 2 leader choices would be the same. However, we should still allow the option to be there in case two teams do make the same pick.

You could forget about roleplaying, for one, for anyone who's interested in that.

Why would all people having the same leader eliminate roleplaying? That just doesn't follow at all.

 

[Theoden]

I don't like the idea of duplicates. For all we know, we could wind up all picking the same leader! And that would just be weird. You could forget about roleplaying, for one, for anyone who's interested in that.

In the last civ4 mtdg all teams got their first choices even though we had decided against duplicates, so I would think it very unlikely we end up with more than two leaders being the same in this game.

 

[Calis]

I also am totally against duplicates...as I metioned in the team thread...no cloning, please!

If all leaders meet that might be something like 5x Bismark at a round table. At least there wouldn't be language issues

 

[Krill]

That'd be incredibly unlikely. People have such differing preferences and strategies that I'd be surprised if even 2 leader choices would be the same. However, we should still allow the option to be there in case two teams do make the same pick.

I agree :b: It's not likely that each team wants to play the same civ, but as some civs are better on some maps than others, it would be unfair to just give one team an advantage over another for no apparent reason.

Tell you what, the teams that decide they don't want duplicate civs can pick after the rest of the teams, so they know they won't get a duplicate. The rest of us can pick whatever civ we want

Why would all people having the same leader eliminate roleplaying? That just doesn't follow at all.

Hey, if all teams want to play the same civ, I'd happily change the name of the leader, to something different. Call him Munty, say.

 

[Joe Harker]

Each team will have it's own identity anyways so having the same leaders won't change that, if two teams want the same leader then let them both have it

 

[dutchfire]

In the Civ3 MTDG, each team submitted an ordered list with 5 choices. Then the decision process was:
1) Those teams that have chosen a unique leader as their 1st, give them that leader.
2) For all duplicate choices, roll the dice to see who of them gets their choice.
3) For the teams that did not get their 1st choice, move to the next viable alternative in the list.
4) Rinse and repeat.

I think this worked out fine, so we could do it again.

(In other words, our team got our #1 pick )

 

[Niklas]

Our team got 4th pick, and we're very happy with that. Even after being declared on by the team who got their 1st pick.