Ability to easily select between different Civ's abilities

[AntSou]

What I'm requesting is something akin to a drop down menu in-game and the ability for modders to give the same Civ different but mutually exclusive abilities.

It is essentially the same logic which was used for Eleanor, only in this case it wouldn't be across Civs.

Example:

American Empire

Abilities
Founding Fathers - All Diplomatic policy slots in the current government are converted to Wildcard policy slots. +1 Diplomatic Favor per turn for each Wildcard slot in the current government.

Mother of Exiles - +25% Immigration pull to Cities with +1 Amenities. +50% if +3 Amenities or above. (I know immigration doesn't actually exist in the game... yet!).

Leaders
Theodore Roosevelt - Units receive +5 Combat Strength on their home continent. +1 Appeal to all tiles in a city with a National Park. Gain the Rough Rider unique unit with Rifling.

Abraham Lincoln - Gains +5% bonus to Production/Culture/Science/Gold in all cities for each Free City originally founded by America. Free Cities originally founded by America may not be conquered by or flip to other Civilisations, unless when at war with America.

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Just like linking a single leader to a single Civ was too restrictive in Civ V, being stuck on a single ability makes it cumbersome if you want to edit the ability. You either play with a mod which changes it, or you play with a mod which adds, for instance the United States as a new Civ, which would just be a complete copy of the American Empire, including the Leader, with the only difference being the ability.

Optimally I'd be able to get into mod buddy and create a new ability which automatically gets attached as an option for the American Empire in-game.

This would also allow you to randomise the abilities when starting a new game.

It would also contribute towards replayability. Rather than depending on Leaders for variety, having two abilities and two leaders for the same Civ might allow for more interesting combinations.

E.g.:

Roosevelt + Founding Fathers
Roosevelt + Mother of Exiles
Lincoln + Founding Fathers
Lincoln + Mother of Exiles

 

[PhoenicianGold]

Pros: In the same way that alternate leaders represent different empires or polities sharing a cultural throughline, alternate civ abilities could widen representation of the various stages of a civ's history even more. For example, England could have a "Seven Kingdoms" ability or France could have a "Napoleonic Code" ability. Although as observed in the latter case, that really feels like it should be a leader ability, and I imagine would only be introduced as a civ ability as a concession that Napoleon would never be a leader in VI.

Cons: If the aim of official content is to make each civ feel like it has a distinctly different playstyle from all of the others (which, I think it demonstrably is, even if we can point out places where it doesn't quite succeed), then the more options each civ has makes it more likely to tread on the mechanical toes of other civs, and thus less marketable as a unique new experience. Granted, this principle seems like it can be bent after the bulk of the new content is released and the developers understand that late cycle bonus content doesn't have to feel as "new/necessary" to sell itself.

On balance, I like the idea. As far as development and balancing goes it would be very easy to design and a low cost way to keep fleshing out the game. The only major limitation I can imagine would be if civs are hard-coded to only have a single associated ability or not.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

maybe if you are dissatisfied with your civ you get a mulligan and can have a revolution and a new leader with new abilities. An interesting idea but 1) each civ would need two leaders which might be hard to do for some (e.g. Zulu...Jan Smuts?). And 2) it would need to be more difficult than simply switching whenever you feel like it.

 

[Sostratus]

The only major limitation I can imagine would be if civs are hard-coded to only have a single associated ability or not.

Based on some dabbling in modding, essentially the civ ability is tied to the civ itself, as in attached to an entry in a table of civilizations.
Leader abilities are attached to leaders. In fact, eleanor is two separate leaders in the game table, last I checked.

AFAIK you could just create another copy of a civ which carries ability #2, and assign the same leaders to both civs.

It can be put together but the way things are set up now, you couldn't do a "any civ any leader" system in a clean way.