[R&F] Governors are kind of immersion breaking.

[Metecury]

Would it have been better, if the governors were modelled after real (great) people? Or had been kept without names to begin with?

Probably.

 

[Goliht]

Yo

I got to chime in on this one. It does seem like a really bad design decision. Say if I play a game and hire Magnus to run one of my cities, I'm assuming that every AI player can also hire Magnus. If I'm playing in a multiplayer game, every other human player can hire Magnus. This just makes no sense. Why wouldn't you use a system similar to great people generation and naming? I'm not a player who really needs immersion but this seems like a very unnecessary flaw.

Yeh I agree, they could have made like 20-30 Governors. Then made 100 or so upgrades. Then you'd get to choose from rng 12 or so govenors over the game, each would be unique, upgraded in a unique way from a rng plethora of upgrades. That way noone would have a clue what govenor you had outside of a general skillset, now overtime people will know roughly what to expect if attacking a city with a specific governor in it and the advantage will be moot. It really does seem like they've gone the route of doing as little as possible, whilst making as many waves as possible. Maximum profit for minimum effort.

 

[Ryika]

Would it have been better, if the governors were modelled after real (great) people? Or had been kept without names to begin with?

Random names that fit your Civilization would be ideal, but for me personally no names would be a step up from names that are just fixed.

It's about identification when you look at the city bars. People will know very quickly what each governor does and which one is which. If it wasn't their face it would be a letter. This would be way less obvious for players. Having multiple pictures for each governor just muddles this.

Making them caricatures like they are also helps this identification process.

Do you already know what each governor kinda does just by looking at their picture? Think about that.

You could just do that via color coding, or other methods.

 

[Duuk]

7 Icons, one for each "type" of governor. A name list for each type of governor for each Civ.

Voila. Everyone happy.

 

[pietro1990]

I more dissapointed at the art look wouldn't it be cool if these where you're governors:

.

 

[Disgustipated]

The art style doesn't bother me. I'd rather the governors be funny looking, not the leaders. I hope they will make leaders more realistic in the future, and please fix Georgia's leader Firaxis. I'm the only one not bothered by the governors appearance.

 

[Dustbrother]

7 Icons, one for each "type" of governor. A name list for each type of governor for each Civ.

Voila. Everyone happy.

This is the optimal solution in my opinion.

Yeh I agree, they could have made like 20-30 Governors. Then made 100 or so upgrades. Then you'd get to choose from rng 12 or so govenors over the game, each would be unique, upgraded in a unique way from a rng plethora of upgrades. That way noone would have a clue what govenor you had outside of a general skillset, now overtime people will know roughly what to expect if attacking a city with a specific governor in it and the advantage will be moot. It really does seem like they've gone the route of doing as little as possible, whilst making as many waves as possible. Maximum profit for minimum effort.

Hey it's ok mate, the modding community will do the work for them..

 

[nzcamel]

Seriously, this is a Game where colonial Australia exists in 4000BC can war with Kongo over tea plantations, while building Stonehenge. Who then can have John Curtain enter a 3000 year war with Gandhi that leads to nuclear apocalypse and the destruction of the Roman people who worship Confucianism and follow Communism and who was lead into war by Boudicca... but an ethical diverse range of governors is where the 'Immersion' breaks down for people.

Well, in 4000BC whatever my Civ is, we ain't ethnically diverse I am the Chinese (or whatever), but suddenly I have this guy called Victor who's a big factor in what I do.
If his obviously European face wasn't so prominent in one of my city bars, it'd probably bug me less. i.e. Keep their visuals to the governer screen where people who think like I do can't see 'em.

This line of thought has been prevalent on the forum ever since the governors were revealed, but honestly, how are they any different at breaking immersion than the various great people that one can employ?
This is the very game where playing as Philip 2 of Spain you can recruit Francis Drake as an admiral for you!

And for the sake of immersion, one can always pretend to be leading an egalitarian empire of a metropolitan nature attracting greatest minds from all corners of the world to guide and serve a great patron like you. Some intense role playing.

And that would not be exactly historically inaccurate; atleast some empires in history have been known to employ people from different parts of the known world in services ranging from mercenaries to administrators. The Mughal empire and the Deccan Sultanates often did this.

The governors are a bigger part of the game than Great People. Their images cannot be escaped. Great people have a stylised image in their Great Person screen, and while their in-game bodies aren't overly accurate (no females etc) you also don't see them that often.
All that and I'm sorry, but history isn't overly egalitarian pre-liberalism; so that doesn't do immersion for me. Maybe once you hit 1000AD later governors you acquire could look different from your Civ (modern Nation states aside, who this line up is fine for). But no.

It would’ve been a mammoth task to have unique governors for each civilization.

I guess we’ll see once it releases.

But they have that for the much less important spies and those who whisper you gossip from afar! Hell, unname the gossip whisperers all together and give their random name list to the governors!

 

[Barbarian King]

I would much rather they prioritize creating female versions of the great people appearing on screen!!!! Really immersion breaking after reading about cool-female-historical-great-person only to look at "her" on the map and see some random bald dude

The governors are a bigger part of the game than Great People. Their images cannot be escaped. Great people have a stylised image in their Great Person screen, and while their in-game bodies aren't overly accurate (no females etc) you also don't see them that often.

On Great People, while the icons may be the same for all GP of a type, the unit models actually match the appropriate person - both by sex and ethnicity. I'm assuming this was a deliberate decision: have a constant icon so that they can be easily recognized but customize the unit models for immersive purposes.

 

[nzcamel]

On Great People, while the icons may be the same for all GP of a type, the unit models actually match the appropriate person - both by sex and ethnicity. I'm assuming this was a deliberate decision: have a constant icon so that they can be easily recognized but customize the unit models for immersive purposes.

Well that's cool. But it's not as big a deal as the ugly unimmersive mugs that are going to stare at me from significant City Bars. That is where I'd love to see a stylised image.

 

[conorbebe]

It's annoying but I think I'll be able to live with it if Firaxis at least allow us to edit their names.

 

[Inhalaattori]

7 Icons, one for each "type" of governor. A name list for each type of governor for each Civ.

Voila. Everyone happy.

This is how it should have been done. I could understand if Great people had pics, but with governors it just doesnt make any sense. Its stupid to use pictures and names when all Civs have the same governors. Simple symbols would be much better.

 

[UWHabs]

This is how it should have been done. I could understand if Great people had pics, but with governors it just doesnt make any sense. Its stupid to use pictures and names when all Civs have the same governors. Simple symbols would be much better.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. I don't really care, but it seems like it would have been simpler to manage with a more generic profile.

 

[Scaramanga]

Well, since Governors are essentially sub-Leaders, it makes sense that they would get the same treatment as the actual Leaders in terms of personality, they have a bit more style maybe because they lack animation. I like the idea of having a multi-cultural roster of governors since a lot of leaders had advisors from other nations.

 

[Nikae]

Civ5 happens. People wail because it is too serious.

Civ6 happens. People wail because it is not serious enough.

You might need a psychiatrist surgeon to help with that broken immersion though.

Apart from that, looking at other aspects of the game, how does modern Australia coexist with medieval Germany in the ancient world where they race to build Stonehenge and recruit Hypatia who lived in Egypt?

There's a lot to cry about, isn't there? There should be differently colored wailing groups. For Paradox, for civ4, for 1upt, for stupid ai and so on, people would only need to pick colors and dot the forum instead of repeat the same wailing.

 

[drubell]

The Civilization series is a representation of a world, not our world.

Giving the governors unique names would make it virtually impossible for us to discuss the governors on these forums, for a start. So the only other reasonable option to address this complaint would've been for the governors not to have names at all. Firaxis apparently decided that giving them names helped the game, so they did.

Incidentally, if Firaxis HADN'T given them names, then I imagine the major complaint would've been that Victor's portrait would not fit in a civ like Kongo or something. So Firaxis can't win either way.

I don't recall people complaining about how the advisors in Civ 5 looked, despite the fact some of them might not be "immersive" to some civs. Maybe people have forgotten about the Civ 5 advisors at this point?

 

[Pythakoreas]

Would it have been better, if the governors were modelled after real (great) people? Or had been kept without names to begin with?

Great idea, but what happens if beginners start confusing Great Person and Governor?

Now that I think about it, Civ6 is becoming more and more intimidating game for beginners. Now that every Great Person is different in Civ6 a beginner might easily confuse Great Person and Governors, both of them need micromanagement. Along with Food/Housing (both of them growth related) and Influence Points/Envoy system (both of them CS related, it might take a while until beginner realizes that more IP means more frequent Envoys, and Envoy system is complex on its own) Civ6 is making steps backwards when it comes to accessibility, something Civ5 was excellent at.

 

[Pythakoreas]

Speaking of naming Governors... they took the effort to give ethnic names to every trade delegate and spies, and they're not doing research to find significant people in every civilization to give great Governor names?

At least I'm expecting a "name your own Governor" option in this case...

 

[Disgustipated]

Remember when Elvis Presley was your entertainment advisor in Civ 2?

Surely you aren't saying Elvis wasn't around in 4000BC in the Sumerian empire, and is not around today. Elvis and his message is eternal. All hail our mighty entertainer Elvis.

It's funny how serious people want Civilization to be these days. When you look back at Civ2, it did get pretty silly, but I still have fond memories of that game.

Regardless, I think this can be easily fixed by mods. I'm not worried about it. I have no intention of modding it.

 

[Duuk]

Surely you aren't saying Elvis wasn't around in 4000BC in the Sumerian empire, and is not around today. Elvis and his message is eternal. All hail our mighty entertainer Elvis.

It's funny how serious people want Civilization to be these days. When you look back at Civ2, it did get pretty silly, but I still have fond memories of that game.

Regardless, I think this can be easily fixed by mods. I'm not worried about it. I have no intention of modding it.

In the Phule's Company series of books, Elvis's words have become a future religion and followers are encouraged to all become Elvis impersonators.