Random personalities

[pholtz]

I notice that in the beta you have random personalities turned off. I would like to start discussion on another approach.

Require random personalties.

It has always seemed to me that choosing your opponents was a bit of a cheat. It also took some of the mystery out of the game. One of the attractions of Civ is exploring the unknown. When you get to choose all of your opponents, one part of the exploration is taken away.

One standard answer is that people will always play multiple games until the get the best opponents. With random personalities this will become almost impossible. Often you don't meet all of your opponents until many turns have passed, then even after you have, you still won't know if they are a peace or warmonger for a while.

I realize that you can still choose your opponents, and so can choose which powers your opponents will have, but you would no longer be able to choose how they play.

 

[Ozbenno]

This isn't something we have set in stone, just wanted to make the first game a 'known' quantity. We are looking at options like this closely.

 

[Denniz]

One question I would have before considering this is: How effective is the Random Personalities. (i.e. like does it work and does it yield viable opponents. No much fun if the Civ can't take advantange of it's advantages.)

You do make a good point about selecting opponents to maximize. That is something we need to discuss.

 

[WastinTime]

No way on rand personalities.

Many HoF players play all their games under the HoF umbrella (as I do). It would a horrible shame to strip the personality off the leaders. The personality that the designers intended that leader to play with. This option is fine for a gauntlet or two, but I don't believe it should get any more consideration.

If you'd like to discuss forcing random OPPONENTS. I'm all for opening that discussion. Not sure how I'd vote yet.

 

[feelotraveller]

My guess (insufficient empirical data as yet) is that random personalities would be detrimental on the whole to the AI. We don't want this.

On random opponents I've never really been skillful enough to manipulate these for much effect. But if we go this route why not enforce random map type as well. (That's a big NO from me then.)

 

[sanabas]

No way on rand personalities.

Many HoF players play all their games under the HoF umbrella (as I do). It would a horrible shame to strip the personality off the leaders. The personality that the designers intended that leader to play with. This option is fine for a gauntlet or two, but I don't believe it should get any more consideration.

Likewise. All my completed games get submitted to the HoF. I would be more than happy to see say 1/3-1/2 of gauntlets require random personalities. I'd certainly prefer it to be allowed for HoF play. But I wouldn't want it to be compulsory.

If you'd like to discuss forcing random OPPONENTS. I'm all for opening that discussion. Not sure how I'd vote yet.

I'd be happy to have that, assuming it is detectable. From memory, the objection wasn't just that people would replay until they found the perfect setup, but that in civ3 they could discover all the opponents on turn 1, so it was easy to keep replaying. That's not the case now, and endless replays looking for a good start + good opponents will mean playing a lot of games for a lot of turns before abandoning.

 

[Methos]

I don't expect anyone to actually use it when submitting games for the HOF tables, but as already stated, it would be interesting to have an occasional gauntlet that required random personalities.

Note, this thread is not to force random personalities on every game, but whether to make it an option that the player has, if they so desire.

Also realize that random personalities is allowed in the Civ IV HOF and has been for a long time.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Random Personalities:

I would favor making Random Personalities optional.

I fully expect that 99+% of HOF players will play without Random Personalities. Making "Random Personalities" mandatory would be extremely unpopular.

Some players may start a hundred Games in a Day and play out the Game with their favored Opponent Leader Personalities. Most players simply do not have the time to do that and would thus play at a significant disadvantage compared to the aforementioned players.

Random Opponents:

Is "Random Opponents" a Game option in Civ V, unlike in Civ IV? In Civ IV, there is no way to tell whether Opponents were generated Randomly or not. If a player had an easy set of opponents in a Game, he may have generated them Randomly and was (very) lucky or he selected them on purpose; there is really no way to sure be which is the case.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[DrakenKin]

As mentioned before, random personalities might cause problems for the AI (for one they might not use their traits and uniques properly) and for this reason alone it might be a bad idea.

Maybe try it a couple of times in the beta to see how the AI does under these conditions before making a final decision.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

As mentioned before, random personalities might cause problems for the AI (for one they might not use their traits and uniques properly) and for this reason alone it might be a bad idea.

If that's true, the game designers implemented "random personalities" incorrectly and need to fix it.

However, there's no reason why the AI would not be "aware" of its unique ability despite "random personalities". It's only the Player and other AIs that would have no clue. Each AI should "know" its own unique ability as applied by the "random personalities" option.

Sun Tzu Wu