Civilization Design

[WGW]

I think this is a good base to start on.
it should have much things different.
as for the jedi and sith, we have discused in an other thread something like a goverment civic for sith/jedi/neutral,etc so i dont think they should be a civilization. just look at the posibelity that a sith empire is destroying a jedi empire becaus the siths are jedi's and the jedi's are siths's

 

[Qdin]

yesh-yesh...

People, mind looking into the other topics before 'declaring' these things??

Right now the best 'material' for the whole Leaderthingy is to make it more... well - predefined from the beginning HOW you're gonan play.

Say, if you choose the leader which has the profession Lawyer, you'll get boosts on some areas such as diplomatic relations and 'better trade' and/or commerse.

If you choose Veteran Bounty Hunter you'll get other bonusses like... higher rewards for looting/Razing!

This way it won't be as predefined as "I'll be Republic and my char is gonna be with these and those and I'll build LOTSA battledroids! *omg omg omg* "

See my point? This way the player chooses HOW he wants his play to happen, and then the force and everything can get in later.. Making it pretty more 'Natural' to play since it won't end up with CIS with Clone Troopers and everything.

THEN later the player can choose if he wants to take some 'classic' path

 

[Kissamies]

That is the main thing to this game, fun. That's why I recommended recognizable things from the SW universe,so no one would be left in the dark about civs and units and if they didn't know at least they could be brought to speed quickly.

Well, the way I see it there is three main considerations when choosing civs:

1. Recognizability. It's important to make it feel like Star Wars even for people who are not EU geeks like me. People and goverments from movies should be first and foremost. Then the more widely known EU stuff.
2. Coolness. The mod should contain things that are cool. This will probably also cause fights, though. People have different opinions on what's cool.
3. Viability. How hard a given civ is to implement. The Yuuzhan Vong would probably be too much work, for example. Properly done they would need their own units or at least their own versions of the general units. Vong with metallic spaceships and droids would just be so wrong.

Also it would be good to have a some kind of number. About how many civs we are aiming to have? 8? 12? 20? Doesn't need to be set in stone, but some general estimate would help the choosing. Then we can divide the civs to "must have's", "maybe laters" and "probably nots".

 

[WGW]

well i would like very much of them.
20 seems good enough for me.
i think we can make 20 civs that the most people will know.

 

[tallicahead00]

I just don't want the new team to feel overwhelmed and give up like the last team that did a SW mod. That is my greatest worry.

 

[Kissamies]

Yeah, probably should have a pretty modest first release with more features planned for later releases. Having something released helps morale.

 

[NikNaks]

According to this thread it seems civs are first on the menu. I've been looking through the art files, and there are a few static LHs we could use. It's be great if we could get some animated ones... (nudge nudge, Chuggi)

 

[WGW]

Qdin you can make 3D art right?
how about making some very cool leader heads? ^.^

 

[NikNaks]

I'll second that

 

[Qdin]

That completely depends on what I gotta create - and HOW I gotta create that...

But of course it sounds like a great idea - but I'm not gonna make some leadersheads if we are gonna use a totally different 'set' of types of leaders.
I'm still holding for the 'Profession' Leader and those abilities instead of the classic wankerstylish 'CIS', Rep, Mandalorians and whatever people think. If we can't make the CIS have Droids instead of clones, we shouldn't use them anyways;
Make it right or don't make it.

Besides, I've got no idea of how to make the Leaderheads and how to make them work anyways <.<

 

[thomas.berubeg]

What do you mean

If we can't make the CIS have Droids instead of clones,

you can always do that... or do you mean have the models?

 

[Qdin]

well, I don't want the Lader to be CIS and to run around with a Clone Army, and the Empire running around with battledroids and what, Gungans? To run around with Mandalorian soldiers.

It's just too wrong to me.

That's why I've suggested 'Profession Leader' which will have other abilities so the player have no 'I'm CIS I need droids!' and whatsoever.

 

[tallicahead00]

well, I don't want the Lader to be CIS and to run around with a Clone Army, and the Empire running around with battledroids and what, Gungans? To run around with Mandalorian soldiers.

It's just too wrong to me.

That's why I've suggested 'Profession Leader' which will have other abilities so the player have no 'I'm CIS I need droids!' and whatsoever.

I second that.

 

[NikNaks]

Basically flavour for every civ. Okies... Any ideas on city names for the civs?

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

What is the battleground of this mod ? Is it at a planet scale or at a galaxy scale ?

 

[Kissamies]

That is tricky one, because the planets overlap much. Have to take a long, hard look of the Galaxy Map and read the goverment descriptions. Well, Empire could call Coruscant the "Imperial Center" because they had that as the official name even though nobody used it.

 

[Sovin nai]

The Vong would have to have a completely different unit structure, and technology too, most likely. Definetely city improvements would be different. It would take a lot of work, and shouldn't be done until the end. I don't think it would be impossible, just really, really hard.

For the Chiss, as someone has pointed out, it should be the Ascendancy, rather than the Chiss Empire. A good Unique Unit would be a Clawcraft, or something. Thrawn should not be a leader, as he was barely even considered Chiss after he left to join the Imperials. Maybe Baron Soontir Fel, or maybe one leader for each family; Nurodo, the other three families (don't remember their names, all I remember is that there is one for each part of government, and Nurodo is military), and the Chiss Expeditionary Defence Force. Could be too many leaders, but that's just a suggestion.

The Galactic Federation of Free Alliances should have Cal Omas, and Leia Organa Solo as leaders. Leia wasn't ever the Chief of State, but she was very influential. You could also put a couple of military leaders as other choices. The UU could be the XJ-wing, the new X-wing.

The problem with having the Imperial Remnant is that it would basically be the Empire, with Palleon instead of Vader/Thrawn or Palpatine. Maybe just add him as a third leader choice, instead of a completely different civilization. Is it possible to have a different automatic name for cities, based on the leader? If so, that would be pretty easy.

The Hutt Empire should have smugglers, or bounty hunters, as UU. It shouldn't be the Hutt Empire, but the "Unlawful" Empire, or something like that. Then you could add other crime lords, that aren't Hutts.

If you have the Old Republic as the Galactic Senate, you could rename the Ancient Old Republic too just the normal Old Republic. A little less unwieldy.

One last suggestion: Thrawn should have the Noghri. The little creatures could kill a Yuuzhan Vong with bare hands, and would do anything to help "Lady Vader" or Thrawn, or Darth Vader.

 

[Kissamies]

I think we should take "as seen in the movies" goverments and put them on the game. Those would be Galactic Republic, CIS, Empire and Rebel Alliance and maybe the Hutts (correct me if I'm forgetting something.) Then we should rate all the civs that have been suggested and we can think of by Viability (how easy and how much work it would be) and Relevance (how recognized and how much impact on SW universe). Something like 1-3 or 1-5 scale, I think. Then we would take a number of best scorers and put them on public vote.

The Vong would have to have a completely different unit structure, and technology too, most likely. Definetely city improvements would be different. It would take a lot of work, and shouldn't be done until the end. I don't think it would be impossible, just really, really hard.

Yeah, the Vong just wouldn't be right if you didn't give them biological looking versions of default units and buildings at the very least. Their hatred of technology defines them too much for them to have the regular technological stuff. Therefore, while they have pretty good Relevance for EU stuff, their Viability score is low because they would be too much work. Maybe later.

The problem with having the Imperial Remnant is that it would basically be the Empire, with Palleon instead of Vader/Thrawn or Palpatine. Maybe just add him as a third leader choice, instead of a completely different civilization. Is it possible to have a different automatic name for cities, based on the leader? If so, that would be pretty easy.

I'm starting to think more and more that all the different variations and heirs to the empire would be best handled with just one civ with different leaders. Even warlords if included. That would probably be Zsinj.

 

[Sovin nai]

I think we should take "as seen in the movies" goverments and put them on the game. Those would be Galactic Republic, CIS, Empire and Rebel Alliance and maybe the Hutts (correct me if I'm forgetting something.) Then we should rate all the civs that have been suggested and we can think of by Viability (how easy and how much work it would be) and Relevance (how recognized and how much impact on SW universe). Something like 1-3 or 1-5 scale, I think. Then we would take a number of best scorers and put them on public vote.

Some of the possible civilizations could be civics. That would be easier than a civilization for each. The Corporate Sector Authority, the Hutts, the Mandalorians...
With the scale thing, I quite agree with you. Could we do that with one massive poll, or several not so massive polls? Probably several polls, one for each possible civilization. Add the Chiss, and maybe the Hapans, S'sruuk, and the Yevetha. In fact, just put all of the civilizations, and narrow them down to the top 5 or something. Then doing it again if those are finished, then again. The problem is, which should be more important, Relevance, or Viability?

 

[Kissamies]

It depends on how much resources we have. I'd play it safe and put Viability first. To describe my idea a little better I use a hypothetical example:

Lets assume that we are putting 10 civs in the first release. 5 of those are the movie civs. That leaves 5 free slots. To choose the civs to fill those slots, we select maybe 15 civs with best Viability-Relevance scores and put them in poll. The five winners get in.

When adding civs to later releases, we also have to look what's already in and decide which additions would "fill the gaps" best, but that'll be later.

Originally I thought to have points for coolness too and no poll, but coolness is subjective. Better let the voting decide.