I want to take a moment to say that most of this project has been my wife's idea. Furthermore, this is the first one she did all the xml and art for and did so by following instructions and my answering questions but that was the full extent of my involvement. I did NOT lift a finger to directly help with any step of the process. Therefore, she went to great lengths to overcome a lot of that sense of intimidation that we get when we enter into a new project. This sense of intimidation comes from two sources, the first being, 'can I really do this?' and the second being 'will people appreciate it if I do?'
I have to take some blame here then because I was part of the process of design consideration suggestions and so on. If I didn't see a point to this that was not currently being covered by what we already have in C2C, I would've gently guided her into a different direction.
I know that I've got alligator skin and am willing to debate til I'm blue in the face and can, also, as a result, hear criticisms and not take them as an affront and sometimes I do bend in that breeze. As she's a little new to this process, please understand that there are some sensitive nerves exposed here. I'm sure we all started that way unless we had previous experiences harden our senses and affirm our sense of confidence already.
So I'm going to try to mitigate here some arguments. Some of these are entirely my own and the way I see things.
By the way the Traditions idea (National Wonders) would be a better way of looking at those Wonders. They almost exactly match
- they are only available for a set period
- they only affect a subset of units
the differences are that
- they are a World Wonder not a National Wonder at least I think they are I may have read that wrong.
- Traditions can only be built by Great People.
The Doctrines idea is the Great Wonder equivalent of Traditions. They tend to last a lot longer if not for ever and apply to larger groups of units eg all land units rather than just melee.
I can understand why you would seek to take an idea that is similar to traditions and doctrines, which you championed for and brought to the mod from elsewhere, and present a case for letting such a similar concept slip into that track you established. I can see why you see it as so similar that there may not be a need for a 'new track' here.
What I think you're overlooking is that this thread is about Group Wonders. This is not exactly the same as a World or National wonder. It's both but neither. Whisperr has a strong vision for these and sees them as being very different in tone and feel and most importantly, in purpose. This is one of many ways to express the manners in which we can use these Group Wonders.
In a sense, they are world wonders, but you can only build one of the world wonders in the group, and thus you should appreciate, since you've often openly wished for this, the fact that it will create a specialization for the civilization that builds it. Once taken, no other civilization can get the same benefit but they can get another one from the set if they haven't constructed one of their own yet, and by so doing, deny all other civilizations the ability to get THAT set of benefits.
One HUGE difference between the effect this delivers and the effects of a tradition or doctrine, is that ALL units in the empire, no matter where they are, whether they are trained already or will be hereafter, get the promotion. And when the building obsoletes, so too is the trait lost and thus they all lose the promotion as well.
The temporary nature of this is a big point because it has been intended to color one era, another thing you yourself have called for more of... making the focus of the game differ by era. Other similar concepts with Group Wonders to help color an era, or select your national strength for the era are being considered for other eras. Not all will be military centered. Even this set could be grown to encompass more than just military application to make it more like a true Era's trait selection and less purely unit driven. But there has been some debate here as to whether those should wait until different eras since we're looking to make each era take on a different feel.
The choice a player makes here, if they can be in the lead enough to get much choice, can really determine how you would be best to play out the era and that's ultimately the point. Are you best to turtle, raid, invade? Are you making your selection to counter what a neighbor selected or are you the aggressor trying to get an edge on a shock wave invasion during the Ancient, which can be a tough era to invade during? I'm sure you can see there are more questions to be asked in which unit type you will choose to have as your specialty during the Ancient Age.
Another difference: With traditions and doctrines, they do require the use of a Military Great Person. These make them have a sacrificial feel... you must sacrifice a GP that you'd rather be able to use for something else to get them. With these, you're probably going to be able to pick one of them from a list that dwindles as other civs reach and build them out from under you and it doesn't require sacrifice, but it does require taking the risk of being beat to the punch as any Great Wonder does.
The point of this is the point of all Group Wonders, pick your nation's specialty. That's it's own game dynamic channel and one she's overcome a lot of challenges (I'm sure you remember how that was) to offer us another angle on.
I think the name and target we have for Developing Leaders is wrong if we are using culture.
I think it needs to change to something like the Cultural Heritage idea where what leader traits you can open up and therefore choose from are based on what you do.
I get your point but culture was selected as a guage that would represent Leader Experience for Developing Leaders for two reasons:
1) Culture has nowhere near the value of its equivalent Research commerce. It needed more benefit and this was a way to enhance it's value.
2) It can be argued that the leader always had these traits but his time in office has enabled the policies and actions and opinions of the people to harmonize more and more with that of their leader. They react more and more in line with his nature and more and more he finds ways to implement his policy ideas. All of this is part and parcel of the growing body of art and expression, much of which is influenced by the state to be propaganda sources.
3) It is a failed, and I mean completely failed, concept to base trait development on what you've chosen to do in the game. It is simply far too complicated to try to find ways to track all these things and balance them against each other so that you can have a fair and even system of assignment. As we were trying to develop it in the Heritage project, it became extremely visible how and why this would not work. Perhaps eventually somewhere in the later stage of the Ideas project we'll find that we can have some levels of Idea influence guide us to have a Civilization trait of one type or another. That's really been something I've had in mind for a long time. But trying to make the standard concept of leader traits, as they were in vanilla Civ IV based on game play habits and achievements is just asking for too much tracking of the past when we must be much more concerned about spending our limited game memory on tracking the epic present.
If you are going to have other things based on the total culture of your nation then those are probably National Traits
I've just made my case for why total culture is used for tracking development of leaders.
Similarly there may be Religious Traits which may be both Global ie every nation with that religion contributes to and benefits from them if it is their state religion; and National where local traditions provide local benefits.
These are not discounted from potential inclusion. It could be a good idea to develop another dynamic entirely for this. I agree deeply with this. The leader will always bring his biases heavily to the field, however, and my religious traits in the trait set I've 90% completed have some rather heavy hitting religious factors.
But I really like the idea of a culture's religious values being reflected as different from the leader himself.
Also these, Civilization Traits, are really the same as Traditions or National Wonders in both power and scope the only variation is that you can only choose one of a set. You can still do that with Traditions I just did not find a need yet. Side Note: Traditions don't count towards your National Wonder Count in a city.
Makes for another interesting possible decision, to NOT build ANY of these Group Wonders (that take up a World Wonder slot for those playing limited wonders) so as to not take up a slot with such a temporary benefit. We have the same appreciated tough decisions to make in the Prehistoric with the Cave and Natural (though constructed) wonders that obsolete at Sedentary Lifestyle, that this group was designed to mimic some of the game design factors of, including that very temporary nature and how it challenges you to choose to or not to build one. Of course, these ARE very powerful, (far moreso than the Traditions I'm seeing on review here) and thus, like those nature wonders in the prehistoric, you're taking quite a risk and possibly avoiding a lot of benefit, if you don't build any of them at all. WHERE you build it also becomes quite interesting, particularly if you do have limited wonders on.
If these are Great Wonders they should last one more era edit otherwise they are only as good as National Wonders
Everyone can build a national wonder. Only one nation is supposed to be able to have the benefits of any one of these in a given game.
Tell me, by Sedentary Lifestyle how many Great Doctors, Great Scientists, Great Priests, Great Detectives, and Great Spies have been born. By using Great People you are just giving an advantage to the people who get the tech first and use the Great General or Great Hunter to build. The slower people have to then build the building because they only have a minute chance of getting the GP they need to build the building.
Whisperr and I had a bit of a devil's advocate debate on this subject earlier. I pushed a bit to argue for this suggestion you've made but I think she's right. She convinced me that to make them constructable by theme-matching GPs, it would be unfair to some selections at this stage of the game (they're supposed to be pretty equal although I'm sure some will have favorites) where many GPs are so unlikely to have been born by then and some VERY easy to have generated. It certainly ups the chance that one could be built out from under you by a latecomer and that's kinda interesting but there just isn't enough proliferation of GP birth by this time to warrant it without causing imbalance to some buildings. However, I think we agreed that they should generate some GP pts towards theme-matching GPs and she had the great idea to do that through the trait so as to make it give a little GP Pt or two in every city, not just the one the 'Way' was constructed in.
I'm sure later era reflections of this concept would be much more appropriate to make possible for GPs to construct them outright.
Besides, Generals and Hunters would be the most common to access by then and I personally don't think it would be right for either one to generate the Way of the Shadows (and Spies aren't as easy to obtain by Ancient anymore now that Spy specialists have been made appropriately harder to earn slots to assign) or Way of the Leech or Way of the Fist. Great Doctors and Great Sleuths are nearly impossible to obtain by Sedentary Lifestyle. And I don't think any of us wants this to FEEL like it's another doctrine or tradition, nor even overlap with them. Keeping GPs from being able to directly build these (aside from an Engineer who can do this with any wonder of course) helps to keep this from stepping into the same track as a doctrine or tradition.
