civ 6 is a good game with issues.

I'm trying to explain that there isn't one. This game is not, and cannot be, historically accurate. The most glaringly obvious example o fthat is that nobody lives for six thousand years in order to guide a civliization from stone age to atomic age.

It's a game. Quit whinging about historical accuracy UNLESS you are deleting the game after two turns becauses you don't live for more than a hundred years.
I never whinged about historical accuracy in the first place, so quit whinging about it.

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I'm trying to explain that there isn't one. This game is not, and cannot be, historically accurate. The most glaringly obvious example o fthat is that nobody lives for six thousand years in order to guide a civliization from stone age to atomic age.

It's a game. Quit whinging about historical accuracy UNLESS you are deleting the game after two turns becauses you don't live for more than a hundred years.
Civilization is a franchise based on board games rules and inspired by History.

Sometime it's a bit more of a board game, sometime it's a bit more historical, especially if you add mods.

Nothing wrong in having preference one way or the other, personally mine goes to History, so I just ignore Leaders and adapt other rules, because AFAIK there is no historical simulation using the time-scale of a Civilization-like game that could replace it.

edit: and that's why modding capabilities are so important for me, especially with civ6 leaning more to the board game side than any previous iteration.
 
Weird thought I just had in relation to that: I think we should bring back, sort of, the Civ II concept of the Ambassador (who, in Civ II, was the unidentified foreign-clothed official who visited you on the diplomacy screen).

In this new version, the Ambassador is the 3D personification of the civ whom you interact. Unlike Civ II, ambassadors should be based on actual people, personification or mythological figures representative of that civilization. They could be political leaders, but, since the whole point is that the ambassador is separate from the leader, they wouldn't have to be - Elvis could finally make his return to civ as the American ambassador, for example. Or it could be Uncle Sam. And we coudl park Gandhi here where he can still threaten people with nukes and keep the meme fans happy while having actual Indian leaders lead India. These ambassadors might well never be refered to by name - they could simply be displayed as "American Ambassador", "English Ambassador", etc.

The leader - (maybe call him a Founder instead?) -, meanwhile, would be represented in a much less graphic-intensive way (an icon of some sort, perhaps), but otherwise function as the leader in Civ VI, granting abilities and tweaking the AI (in subtler and more reasonable ways) of their civ. The less intensive requirements of new leaders shoudl allow for additional leaders and thus alt leaders for more civs , and possibly open the door for game modes relying on the existence of alt leaders.

I suggested something like this in passing some time ago as a way around the Leader Resource Sink that keeps the game from having multiple Leaders for each Civ: instead of a graphics/voice acting/animation Resource Pit for each Leader, have an elaborate Audience Chamber with a Diplomat/Minister you interact with, who doesn't have to be a named character or even a voice actor requiring linguistics research since he could be acting through an interpreter. I also suggested that a Civ could get a Great Person (Great Minister?) occasionally as the ambassador/foreign minister who would be a historical character so that you could find yourself interacting with Tallyrand or Bismarck, Solon, Alcuin or Hasdai ibn Shaprut (DLCs, here we come!) - and finding out that they give a Bonus to the other side in the negotiations, of course.
The 'audience chamber' might be Civ-specific: a columned hall with wall bas-reliefs for Egypt, a high-ceilinged wooden hall for the Norse, even historically-Civ-specific venues like the Amber Room for the Russians . . .

Graphic artists and designers could have a lot of fun with this concept: The Leader/Founder could be represented by a picture on the wall, a figure on the Egyptian bas-reliefs, a statue visible through a doorway in the Great Hall beyond, and if the game includes the possibility/probably of changing Leaders (which was my point in the original suggestion) then the first audience afterwards might include a worker on a ladder removing the old Leader's face from the bas-relief with a hammer and chisel! Costumes of the ambassadors/ministers should be Civ-specific and change with Era and possibly with Government-type (uniforms for a military dictatorship, ill-fitting suits for Communists, etc).

As said, lots of things could be done with this while still keeping the resources required way below what the current animated portraits and voice acting requires, leaving those resources to be better applied to things like map, building, wonder and Unit graphics that we actually play with, over and around, or a greater variety of ministers/ambassadors and other potentially-interactive "Great People".
 
Costumes of the ambassadors/ministers should be Civ-specific and change with Era

Boris Gudenuf, this was done with Civ 3. I never understood the unnecessary concept of immortal leaders. Let us play the civ and not a single leader. In my Civ 3 mod CCM the civs (with some exceptions) have era-specific different leaders for each of the 4 eras in Civ 3.
 
Boris Gudenuf, this was done with Civ 3. I never understood the unnecessary concept of immortal leaders. Let us play the civ and not a single leader. In my Civ 3 mod CCM the civs (with some exceptions) have era-specific different leaders for each of the 4 eras in Civ 3.

Marketing and flavour

What board game designers referr to as “Chrome”
 
Boris Gudenuf, this was done with Civ 3. I never understood the unnecessary concept of immortal leaders. Let us play the civ and not a single leader. In my Civ 3 mod CCM the civs (with some exceptions) have era-specific different leaders for each of the 4 eras in Civ 3.

Thanx. I remembered the Elvis and Friends Advisors from Civ II, (my first Civ game, so it's hard to forget) but forgot about Civ III's take on it. Just reinforces my point that there are other ways to go than the fully animated individual voice-acted Leaders, which have resulted in there not being enough resources to model more than 1 - 2 Leaders per Civ and even then having to skimp on the some of the animation (re-using body types and gestures, as everyone notices right away)
 
Worth remembering, though, that Civ3 did it horribly. Skinhead Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln in a loincloth, and everything about Civ3 Genghis Khan still haunt my nightmares. :twitch: I also wasn't fond of the fact that everyone ends up in a suit in the modern age, as if Westernization were inevitable. Also era-appropriate costumes would be, in my opinion, way more of a resource-sink than alternate leaders. Civ3 leader costumes and Beyond Earth have, together, solidified my opinion that Firaxis does bad work when forced to be original; let's not force them to be original.
 
Worth remembering, though, that Civ3 did it horribly. Skinhead Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln in a loincloth, and everything about Civ3 Genghis Khan still haunt my nightmares. :twitch: I also wasn't fond of the fact that everyone ends up in a suit in the modern age, as if Westernization were inevitable. Also era-appropriate costumes would be, in my opinion, way more of a resource-sink than alternate leaders. Civ3 leader costumes and Beyond Earth have, together, solidified my opinion that Firaxis does bad work when forced to be original; let's not force them to be original.

This may be why I have forgotten almost everything about Civ 3. I won't thank you for reminding me . . .

Done right, they wouldn't have to be original with an Audience Chamber - Ambassador/Foreign Minister design for interactions: put everybody in appropriate national/cultural costume and if you have trouble extrapolating from, say, Aztec Early Modern to Modern Era costume or backdating Industrial American to Ancient, consult with some of the people that study this stuff for a living: cultural anthropologists and historical costume designers.
 
Or heck, as I already said, *do* use historical, mythological or personification figures for ambassadors, whom you can just use existing reference images for. A lot easier than having to research and make up from the ground up appropriate costumes.
 
Leaders have become on one of the main symbols of CIV series, I think is too late and risky to change it now.

I dont see Firaxis reducing their predominant role on the design of each civ and the game mechanics as a whole. Despite this I would said my reasons why I would be happy to get rid of them.

1- Alternate leaders are not a real option. Just look at CIV6, how many civs have alternative leaders? We know most of them have many obvious historical figures as options, but are not used because...
2- They force the design of the whole civ just to fit their figure.
3- The same design weight of the leader not only limit their own civ but also others, because the characteristics of X alternative leader (therefore civ) would be very similar to Y leader for a possible new civ.
4- The research for full voiced and animated leader representation also consume a lot of money and effort (if not look to the animation recycling).
5- On the current world historical figures are the more easy target for historical revisionism and political agendas, they are a minefield for unwanted drama.
6- Turn AI predictable and immutable. Would be nice to see X civ with a different behavior once in a while or dependeing of the era.
7- There are many civ options that are not playable because the lack of some specific historical figure as their leader.
8- Anachronic and immortal.
9- They are in the way to have proper game mechanics for DYNASTIES, POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES, PUPPET GOVERNMENTS and ELECTIONS.

The worse is that since Humankind smartly walked away from the dead weight of civ's historical leaders, any attempt by CIV to do the same could be seen as copying them.
 
Worth remembering, though, that Civ3 did it horribly. Skinhead Joan of Arc, Abraham Lincoln in a loincloth, and everything about Civ3 Genghis Khan still haunt my nightmares. :twitch: I also wasn't fond of the fact that everyone ends up in a suit in the modern age, as if Westernization were inevitable. Also era-appropriate costumes would be, in my opinion, way more of a resource-sink than alternate leaders. Civ3 leader costumes and Beyond Earth have, together, solidified my opinion that Firaxis does bad work when forced to be original; let's not force them to be original.

BWA HA HA Oh My Lord that was anazing. What a time to be alive
 
Leaders have become on one of the main symbols of CIV series, I think is too late and risky to change it now.

I dont see Firaxis reducing their predominant role on the design of each civ and the game mechanics as a whole. Despite this I would said my reasons why I would be happy to get rid of them.

I agree, that for Civ VI it is too late to do here big changes, but the important point to get rid of those ridiculous immortal leaders is still staying for Civ VII. I think your complete post could be an interesting part of the leader discussion for Civ VII - and here it would be correct to discuss this in depth.
 
2- They force the design of the whole civ just to fit their figure.
This is another reason why I prefer Civ 5's method. All you had was a Unique Ability tied to the civ, and it was usually concise. In Civ 6, you have a Unique Ability tied to the civ and a Unique Leader Ability tied to the leader, and they are often very wordy. This just muddles the whole list of uniques for me.

When I played 5, I knew my unique ability no matter who came up on the random leader selection. When I play 6, I'm constantly having to click on my leader portrait in the top right corner to refresh my memory on all my uniques.
 
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This is another reason why I prefer Civ 5's method. All you had was a Unique Ability tied to the civ, and it was usually concise. In Civ 6, you have a Unique Ability tied to the civ and a Unique Leader Ability tied to the leader, and they are often very wordy. This just muddles the whole list of uniques for me.

When I played 5, I knew my unique ability no matter who came up on the random leader selection. When I play 6, I'm constantly having to click on my leader portrait in the top right corner to refresh my memory on all my uniques.

A fair number of the civs/leaders abilities are situtational or straight up gimmicks
 
I agree, that for Civ VI it is too late to do here big changes, but the important point to get rid of those ridiculous immortal leaders is still staying for Civ VII. I think your complete post could be an interesting part of the leader discussion for Civ VII - and here it would be correct to discuss this in depth.
With their competition moving away from leaders, I think FXS's best play is to double down on leaders. What makes Civilization different from Humankind or Old World? The vibrant, memorable leaders. Without that they might as well hand the market to their competition on a silver platter.
 
With their competition moving away from leaders, I think FXS's best play is to double down on leaders. What makes Civilization different from Humankind or Old World? The vibrant, memorable leaders. Without that they might as well hand the market to their competition on a silver platter.

But go back a little to the roots and make them less clowny perhaps?
 
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