pre-release info Augustus (Imperium Maius) - Leader Discussion

[Eagle Pursuit]

Valley of Flowers Natural Wonder

 

[Luxerne]

So, with Spain confirmed as Exploration, I get the sense that maybe the cut-off between Exploration and Modern is somewhere around the 1600s, with Exploration therefore including a good deal of we would call the Early Modern period.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Spanish UU, I'm guessing?
Probably Galleons with a Navy Commander between them

 

[Zaarin]

Feels very arbitrary from both a historical flavour and gameplay angle.

This describes the majority of agendas, IMO, and I'm not thrilled to see them back virtually untouched instead of a new, more interesting leader personality system.

 

[MasterPaw]

I imagine there will be civs encouraged to goble up a lot of territory via towns as oposed to cities, as in being more descentralized...now Im betting Gaul/Celts will have bonus to town building.

Rome does have bonuses toward having lot of towns

 

[Zaarin]

Just once I'd like to see Babylon be the "all about the capital" civ...

 

[8housesofelixir]

Just once I'd like to see Babylon be the "all about the capital" civ...

Together with Song and Edo Japan. Both had an actual policy of stuffing everything into the capital city at the cost of regional cities.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

View attachment 703868
Spanish UU, I'm guessing?
Probably Galleons with a Navy Commander between them

Not easy to judge from this angle. it can even be a pair of carracks. (the first warship capabe to mount big guns, though Galleon was the first designed with naval gunnery in mind.
note that Galleon is abit longer.

 

[Fummy]

Also, this is the first leader/civ we've seen confirmed to have no Start Bias, I believe.

Whats the deal with leaders having start bias when the civs themselves already do? What if they contradict?

 

[ehecatzin]

Rome does have bonuses toward having lot of towns

And hence it would butt heads against other expansionists, maybe they are setting up Augustus as wanting to be the only expansionist civ around. just throwing ideas out there really, I'd really like to see how he plays

 

[Navelgazer]

Just once I'd like to see Babylon be the "all about the capital" civ...

Honestly I'm just psyched to see what they do with Babylon in this game (whether at launch or in later expansions/DLC) because they're always kind of a disappointment to me, design-wise. In Civ5, they were so early-game focused that they felt flavorless after the first like 75 turns (and weren't that interesting in those turns either, to be honest.) In Civ6, they went the other direction with them, making them play wildly differently to every other civ, but not in a way that was at all evocative of being, you know, Babylon. I think having them only exist in Antiquity is going to help a lot there to make them play in an interesting and evocative way and not feel like a slog later on.

 

[El Castellano]

It saddens me a little that they chose Spain and not Castile for the Age of Exploration. But it is also true that I saw him coming. Even so, it seems good that Spain is in the base game.

It seems that Spain is focused on expansion on other diferent continents than the start continent of the Antique Age. The fleet shows what two galleons seem and an flagship as commander. It does not seem that the galleon is a spanish unique unit, it seems to me that it has a generic design. At least for how little I have seen in the video.

It seems that Augusto could be a leader that unlocks Spain in the Age of Exploration. I don't know if that could mean that there is no Spanish leader in the base game. But it seems that Spain could be a naval "Rome" (culture and expansion) for the Age of Exploration.

 

[Zaarin]

Honestly I'm just psyched to see what they do with Babylon in this game (whether at launch or in later expansions/DLC) because they're always kind of a disappointment to me, design-wise. In Civ5, they were so early-game focused that they felt flavorless after the first like 75 turns (and weren't that interested in those turns either, to be honest.) In Civ6, they went the other direction with them, making them play wildly differently to every other civ, but not in a way that was at all evocative of being, you know, Babylon. I think having them only exist in Antiquity is going to help a lot there to make them play in an interesting and evocative way and not feel like a slog later on.

I'm afraid they'll continue to be a dully designed science civ, which is disappointing as there is a lot of Babylonian history to draw upon. I'm just crossing my fingers that Assyria has a builder/infrastructure focus for a change.

 

[rocksinmypath]

This describes the majority of agendas, IMO, and I'm not thrilled to see them back virtually untouched instead of a new, more interesting leader personality system.

I think the agenda system is fine, but like so many things in Civ 6, it didn't belong in that game. I'm hoping that a more expansive diplomacy system will synergize better with the agenda system. Unfortunately, even though Augustus' agenda makes some sense gameplay-wise, it doesn't seem to showcase how a better fit it is with Civ 7. His agenda seems to only relate to war (= "Give me your towns because I like towns"), which is an (anti-)diplomatic action that's available in 6 as well. The other half of his agenda could tie well into the new diplomacy system if there was a collaborative action that related to how many cities the other leader has. I forget what it's called, but there's a diplomatic project (?) that provides flat culture per turn for both participants, but if this was somehow changed, either just for Augustus or globally, to scale with how big the participants' empires are, it could work well.

 

[ehecatzin]

Just once I'd like to see Babylon be the "all about the capital" civ...

Together with Song and Edo Japan. Both had an actual policy of stuffing everything into the capital city at the cost of regional cities.

There are many civs that could make Augustus blood boil, I'd throw Teotihuacan as another "all about the capital" civ, Im hoping we eventually get a bunch of those for when you want to play a massive city with a bunch of towns feeding it.

But it seems that Spain could be a naval "Rome" (culture and expansion) for the Age of Exploration.

Plus Ultra better be one of the civics, or we riot.

 

[Zaarin]

I think the agenda system is fine

I think an agenda system with weak modifiers on top of a more complex personality system like Civ5's would be fine; as is, it makes leaders too one-note and neurotic. Plus, some are just...extremely dubious, like Menelik shrieking about his hills or Wilhelmina bonking you with her umbrella for not trading with her from the opposite side of the map. The system needs more nuance at the very least.

 

[Kjimmet]

I think an agenda system with weak modifiers on top of a more complex personality system like Civ5's would be fine; as is, it makes leaders too one-note and neurotic. Plus, some are just...extremely dubious, like Menelik shrieking about his hills or Wilhelmina bonking you with her umbrella for not trading with her from the opposite side of the map. The system needs more nuance at the very least.

We can only hope this time the AI leaders actually follows their own agenda... Would make playing against AI slightly more interesting than in 6.

 

[rocksinmypath]

I think an agenda system with weak modifiers on top of a more complex personality system like Civ5's would be fine; as is, it makes leaders too one-note and neurotic. Plus, some are just...extremely dubious, like Menelik shrieking about his hills or Wilhelmina bonking you with her umbrella for not trading with her from the opposite side of the map. The system needs more nuance at the very least.

I have no experience with Civ 5, but in 6, there are relationship modifiers that dampen the effects of whether or not you satisfy a leader's unique agendas. I'd argue the system is too nuanced because even though the conditions for triggering (dis)approval animations are simplistic, agendas often don't have a massive impact on what sort of relationship you have with other leaders. Honestly, I'd rather see Menelik stay true to his words. He literally tells me to leave all the hills to him and settle elsewhere. But, if I settle right next to him where there's just floodplains, is he going to like me? No he's not, because I settled next to him, and he'll probably attack if I'm weak enough. What this essentially does is to just create AI that behaves more or less the same all the time.

 

[Zaarin]

I have no experience with Civ 5, but in 6, there are relationship modifiers that dampen the effects of whether or not you satisfy a leader's unique agendas. I'd argue the system is too nuanced because even though the conditions for triggering (dis)approval animations are simplistic, agendas often don't have a massive impact on what sort of relationship you have with other leaders. Honestly, I'd rather see Menelik stay true to his words. He literally tells me to leave all the hills to him and settle elsewhere. But, if I settle right next to him where there's just floodplains, is he going to like me? No he's not, because I settled next to him, and he'll probably attack if I'm weak enough. What this essentially does is to just create AI that behaves more or less the same all the time.

This is why I preferred Civ5's system (among the few things I did prefer in Civ5) because AI personalities had multiple motivators--how open they were to form relationships, how loyal they were to their agreements, how likely they were to backstab, as well as things like how much they prioritized science, wonders, military, etc. They also had variables so leaders wouldn't be the exact same every time. Whereas, as you say, Civ6 leaders never felt sufficiently differentiated, despite their neurotic agendas.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I think the biggest thing about the agendas is what we don't know how exactly it interacts with the new diplomacy system yet. It could simply be a relationship modifier, or it could modify behavior of the leader, making more likely to choose options which increase or decrease relationship.