3rd Civ characteristic, depending on how you play

[timberwolf4545]

I thin kit would be interesting to start with your two characterisics, say Militaristic and Industrius and then depending on how you play and behave - your nation develops a 3rd characteristic eventually. Say you build tons and tons of temples or ships or something. You would get the additional religious or seafaring bonus. This coud change as your play changed.

 

[Baleog]

Interesting idea. How about starting with no characteristics and earning a new characteristic for your style of play at the beginning of each new era.

Unfortunatly it means that the variety of styles of play influenced by set characteristics would be gone and each game would be played in a similar style to the last.
How about turning this feature on or off in the game set up?

 

[timberwolf4545]

Starting with no characteristics and building them all yourself takes away from the uniqeness of a civ. With nothing indemic to your people being constant, the only thing that would really caracterize the "civness" would be the UU. I'm reasoning for the 3rd "floating characteristic" would be to reflect the changing nature of your people as endevours and circumstances play out. Take America for example - during the 90s, it's 3rd characteritic would have been commercial. That's shifted to militaristic now. I'm thinking that these would shift pretty often, like within 10-15 turns or so.

 

[sir_schwick]

How about this, instead of traits, you have a list of questions your society asks, and you as the collective spirit answer.

Who is the highest authority?
Diety
State
Family
Individual
Who holds power(gender)?
Man
Woman
Both
What do we do with money?
Buy Luxuries
Use it to expand
Try to earn more
What do we do with outsiders?
Tolerate
Convert
Reject
What is the role of men?
Warrior
Submissive to woman
Laborer
Intelligencia
What is the role of women?
Warrior
Submissive to man
Laborer
Intelligencia
What is the role of family?
Serve the matriarch/patriarch
Protect interests of family
Support overall community
Prepare adults for independence
What do we value in a home?
Land
Function
Lavishness
Security
What do we do for entertainment?
Gamble
Fight
Theatre
Build

Some of these questions would need to be answered before you start(who is the dominant gender). Many of these choices are not avaliable until certain combinations of techs are reserached. ALso, some choices disallow other choices, the submissive sex cannot be a warrior unless you have a militaristic society with a certain tech. All fo choices would have different consequences and you would have traits, but ones militaristic is not hte same as another. These traits can be changed once every two-hundred years. Also, once a city has enough culture it can change one of the answers for just that city.

 

[timberwolf4545]

Actually - you answer these questions by how you act, what you build, who you attack or trade with etc. I think this is more of a demographic scorecard and is more the egg than the chicken. It brings up a good possibility though. It would really interesting to show polls on the domestic screen that would give a bit more detail about what your people think. Example:

What should we be researching next?

Should we acquire more luxuries or build more libraries?

France is Furious with us, should we go to war?

How do you feel towards the Iriquios?

Should everyone have the right to vote?

Should captured Ottoman workers be sent home?

 

[sir_schwick]

But you shoudl be able to answer them. Also, this is how traits would be determined, instead of fixed traits that often do not match your current needs.

 

[timberwolf4545]

Oh delete the inate traits all together? I think that would make people just pick civs by the unique unit and give themselves the advantages they wanted. Also - the whole crux of this proposal is that a society would change over time. Answering this survey at the begining of the game would lock you in to what you choose even if conditions are contrary to what you answered early on.

 

[sir_schwick]

But they are not fixed at all. Every time your civ accumulated 5000 culture(arbitrary number), you can change the answers. Some are fixed or can only lead to certain other questions, like gender.
UUs would not be fixed either(different thread though). Also, cities would be able to choose their own unique answers to questions(possibly different from the main civ) as they gained culture to sufficient levels.