Choose Our Own Advisors! (and policy)

[Mojotronica]

As to the loyalty question, watch "The Godfather Part II..."

 

[cursif]

[snip snip] I wouldn't help people like me very much though because I never listen to my advisors anyway.

kinda ironic that theoden doesn't listen to his advisors. lol [sorry for being ot]

 

[Beloyar]

Maybe if you chose a more motivated military advisor he would actively try to find out military information on your enemies instead of just sitting around complaining that we have no information on them?

Is that what you're saying?

That's very close.
He may also know if another civ will declare war on you a turn in advance. He will also warn you if a civ will declare war on you when you tell it to move its units off your territory, etc.
There may also be coordinated attacks, when you and your ally decide which cities to attack, etc.

 

[Beloyar]

It seems like that aspect of the game is covered by Civ traits -- the Greeks Scientific and Commercial advantages can be accounted for as their having better advisors in those fields.

So if you want an advisor advantage, play a Civ with the traits you want to emphasize.

Not exactly. There are no hot babes in Civ3. And there is nothing wrong with developing those or other advantages even further through advisors, like I just mentioned.

If you want to be challenged, foreign spies could have a new mission: to assassinate a member of your gov't . This way you could lose an advisor, or do the same for another civ.

 

[Maximus Decimus]

This is a great idea.....and in addition:

1) Why not be able to choose what YOU look like and a few personal characteristics.
2) The advisors, who have various ratings when chosen, could improve over time with experience. This could be done two ways; Either the country as a whole gains experience points, and you can spend the points on what ever leader you wish....OR......the particular advisor gains experience points when certain achievments have been made. i.e. a wonder that provides economic gain would improve experience of the economic advisor. Also if you won a particularly tough battle, or campaign, the military advisor would gain experience points.

 

[warpstorm]

You could also add in "evil play options" under the diplomatic options, say, for example, assassination.

 

[davbenbak]

Hey, I just miss Elvis!

 

[dh_epic]

I think this is a really interesting idea, and could encompass some of the differences that occur in a civilization.

If one of your advisers represents or comes from a sect of your society (e.g.: the poor) and you mistreat or mishandle said issues, that adviser could stab you in the back.

If you're in a democratic government, where the advisors are supposed to be more free thinking instead of handpicked relatives, there should also be a slight likelihood of betrayal.

No empire was ever managed by one person.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
No empire was ever managed by one person.

Yes, but this is, what Civ is about: a game of absolute power and unlimited dictatorship.
You are in democracy? What the heck? Who cares?
You're the one who decides about how much money to be spend for improvement A or tech B. You are planning to do a RoP-rape? Just go on, nobody will stop you... and so on, and so on....

In fact, a lot of the attraction of Civ comes from that absolute power, I guess.
Do you remember Civ1? You were successfully going to smash your eternal enemy, and out of a sudden your senate overruled you and declared peace. That was one of the least funny features of Civ1, and there is quite a reason why it has gone.

How long would you like the idea of concentrating your troops at the borders to the evil, hated "grmpfs" - and out of a sudden, your military advisor/secretary/whatever redistributes them. Could be fun to have to handle it for one time - after the third time you would hate it.

 

[Beloyar]

...
If one of your advisers represents or comes from a sect of your society (e.g.: the poor) and you mistreat or mishandle said issues, that adviser could stab you in the back.

If you're in a democratic government, where the advisors are supposed to be more free thinking instead of handpicked relatives, there should also be a slight likelihood of betrayal.

No empire was ever managed by one person.

Ok, that's a funny one <---imagine that's a stab
I've mentioned this before, no ruler will ever pick an advisor from among strangers from a lower class. In a democracy, advisors have a responsibility to their president and voters. If they have to disagree, they'll either resign or impeach the pres. There is more interesting scenarios in the recent history of the fall of the Soviet Union - political intrigue is great, but way too much detail for a game.

 

[Beloyar]

Yes, but this is, what Civ is about: a game of absolute power and unlimited dictatorship.
You are in democracy? What the heck? Who cares?
You're the one who decides about how much money to be spend for improvement A or tech B. You are planning to do a RoP-rape? Just go on, nobody will stop you... and so on, and so on....

In fact, a lot of the attraction of Civ comes from that absolute power, I guess.
Do you remember Civ1? You were successfully going to smash your eternal enemy, and out of a sudden your senate overruled you and declared peace. That was one of the least funny features of Civ1, and there is quite a reason why it has gone.

How long would you like the idea of concentrating your troops at the borders to the evil, hated "grmpfs" - and out of a sudden, your military advisor/secretary/whatever redistributes them. Could be fun to have to handle it for one time - after the third time you would hate it.

You're right.
However, I think the Civ 1 feature was good but mishandled by developers. As usual, they want to challenge the player in a ******** way instead of looking at how things are done in the real world. W Bush went to war against Iraq on a fabricated document. The true reason was that he hated Saddam and loved oil. American people's opinion was shaped by the administration and Bush is off to war. No senate or parliament can do anything, they also hate Saddam. The UN is powerless. Same thing about Vietnam, Korea, Grenada, Middle East, etc.

So, comming up with fake reasons and shaping public opinion (propaganda) works just as well in a democracy and can be used to achieve a goal of war and whatever else. This brings danger of impeachment or revolution.

 

[dh_epic]

See, that's my problem with Civ, even though I love everything else. The fact that you can convert to democracy, and play like a dictator, and all that really matters is war weariness.

Shouldn't democracy have all its drawbacks, for all its benefits?

 

[Dr. Broom]

It should have its drawbacks, in Civ III you go democracy and if you have universal sufferage you never need to look back and it shouldn't be that way. You should have a large choice between governments you actually want to use not just always democracy and sometimes communism.

 

[BarryB]

I was thinking even worse, like skimming cash, working for your enemies etc.

I actually like the idea of having a range of choices for a specific type of advisor (military, domestic, diplomacy and etc). Especially if each candidate has particular traits that would lead to certain kinds of advices given by the advisor.

However, I don't like the idea of a treacherous advisor There is enough antics to deal with from the other civs, I would not want to have to deal with a treacherous advisor and I certainly wouldn't choose him or her if the advisor proved to be a bad apple in a prior game.

 

[Beloyar]

I think another reason for advisors is to be able to talk to someone other than foreign leaders.

In a democracy, the advisors who would disagree w/your decisions might later impeach you, and your civ's reputation would suffer.

 

[Punkymonkey]

But advisors can't impeach, thats the job of the Congress or Parliment. Maybe if 2/3 your advisors think you're doing a bad job they can recommend you get impeached, after that i'm at a loss on how you actually do get impeached. But if you get impeached how would it have any effect on the game? Is it game over? do you select another gov't type? Or just a rep. hit? To get impeached maybe you'd have a vote, and if the population thnks you're doing bad, ie. 2/3 majority, your "congress" impeaches you based on the opinion ofn their constituency

 

[covenant]

What about letting your advisors marry. You could form semi perm relations between you and a civ for like 50 years (turns). Bringing about things like in Europe with all those wars in the middle ages and muddy political waters cause everyone was related.

And I think the advisors would basically replace civ traits. Now if you wanted an agricultural civ you could choose an advisor that helped in farming. An economic advisor that leaned policies towards the farming community, etc. Later on your economic advisor might be eco friendly or die-hard capitalist (lots of commerence but more corruption and eco damage.)

 

[Colonel]

i like this idea to a point basically i would want u pick from a list for each advisor at the begining of each era, and then that would set up for the rest of the era in this general direction for that era, this idea would negate the cultrul traits u get in the game though, so basically it would give u the freedom to shape u cultrul how u want it not how it really was

"The Godfather Part II" THE SECOND GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, the first of course THE GODFATHER PART I SINGLE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

It could be a new espionage function. You can pay money to 'turn' one of the advisors to another player (or even the AI). The chance of success would depend on the 'Loyalty Factor' Warpstorm referred to. You could increase their loyalty by heeding their advice, increasing the influence of the sector of the population they represent, or just outright bribery ! The problem is that you can't make ALL of your advisors happy, all of the time (just as you shouldn't be able to keep all of your people happy, all of the time!) So there might always be some chance of an advisor becoming disloyal and giving you crappy advice or, worse still, turning to the enemy! Imagine an AI governer who is Disloyal, and deliberately doesn't build those defensive units you told him to build!

EDIT: BTW Cmdr. Bello. I agree with Beloyar that the way that the Senate was implemented in civ2 was poor, but I liked the underlying premise. A better way to do it, especially now that we have civ characteristics and the like, is to have a senate whose actions are defined by those characteristics. For instance, a militaristic civ might have a senate that actually goes behind your back and declares WARS, commercial civs might have senates that abhor war and urge you to make trade deals with other nations. Other factors that would effect the senates behaviour is the other civs culture group, current government type and current religion. Also, the more nationalistic your civ is, the more isolationist and hawkish your senate might be. Sufferage and Libertarianism could effect both the chance of the senate overrulling your decisions, and the extent of the consequences if YOU overrule your senate!
Last of all, in the editor there should be a box you can tick for whether a particular government-type has Senate or not. This way, you could choose whether you are going to have a senate in your games or not!


Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm a big fan of this, although it's a pretty hefty feature.

Still, nothing more enjoyable than paying off an opponent's military advisor to stage a coup USA + Venezuela in 2000 anybody?