Civilizations, Leaders (Traits, Fav. Civic, Fav. Religion)

[AbsintheRed]

There is already a thread for Leaders (art, personality, diplomacy text), but I think a new one was needed for this...

This thread will be mainly for the leaders: what trait combos, favourite civic and favourite religion should they get.
Also, partly for the new ideas for the to be included civs (most of them will be in the modpacks as we all know).
The biggest work will be with the traits of course, this whole thing was mentioned as trait balancing a couple of times before on the other threads...

I made some xls tables of the information already availeable. Most of them comes from the latest playtest and the previous Diplomacy mod, but I tried to include as many suggestions as I remembered. I did not wrote in any of my own ideas for the missing parts yet, as I don't want to decide anything on my own.
Of course anything already written in is also questionable, if anyone has a suggestion to change/add anything, just post it...


First of all, sry for the crappy quality of the pictures, it's because the stupid limit of 500kb for pics here in CFC.
The colour coding for civs is:
Blue - Already included in the main release
Green - These will be definitely in, but I would include those civs even in the main version, not just add as extra civs
Yellow - Capo already mentioned earlier that they probably will be included in one of the modpacks
Purple - Just some other ideas I grabbed from various sources. Note that almoust all of them is an already made civ with finished LHs (or at least there is a WIP/plan for them). I tried to pick those only

Of course the line of green and yellow can be argueable.
For me a civ is good enough for the main version, when it already has at least 2 quality LHs, more or less a known and fairly important civ (with reasonable historical importance too), and have (or we can easily make/find) custom sounds, musics, and custom personality and diplomacy text for it's leaders. These last 4 are unfortunatly not modular, that's why I decided to separate the add-on civs with green/yellow.

So here is the first table: Civilizations

Spoiler :

EDIT: updated the Swahili
added West Indies, Bahamas, Lybia

 

[AbsintheRed]

So here is the more important thing, leaders for all those civs

As of traits:
Right now it seems we will have 3 new traits: Seafaring (with a little trade and exploration flavour), Nationalistic (a mix with an espionage based one) and Nomadic (altough we need a better name for this)
Of course this can be changed, but for start I think it's safe to go with these...
As of civics:
Right now there are a few civics dominating the whole thing, while some of them are barely used.
For leaders where more civics are appropriate, I would always go with a not overused one.
And I really don't like when most leaders for a civ have the same civic, so I marked those in yellow (along with a few others which seems very strange choices to me)
As of religions:
Unfortunately our hands are tied here for most leaders. Again, where we can decide, choose the unused one.
Also, in some cases there is/were no religion associated to the LHs. We voted to go with thier people's religion for a few recent leaders, but of course this doesn't work in all cases.
Anyway, I would like to add a favourite religion to all of the leaders, so whenever it's possible we should try to find one.

The colour coding for leaders is:
Blue - Capo already plans to add these in the main release or in the modpacks
Green - I would definitely add these too (naturally this just counts when the leader's civ is decided to be added)
Yellow - Maybe these are also good ideas, up for discussion
Purple - These are currently WIP/planned LHs, or soon to be upgraded ones


I had to cut my table to 2 parts (again, because of the 500 kb limit of CFC).
The first one includes the blue/green civs, while the second one the yellow/purple civs and the other modpacks

So here are the two parts of the Leaders table:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Recent changes:

• Chandragupta Maurya - Caste System
• Gandhi - now Pacifism instead of Universal Suffrage
• David - now Theocracy instead of Organized Religion
• Suryavarman - now Hinduism instead of Buddhism
• Added Shamanism to Crazy Horse
• Sundiata Keita's and Sunni Ali's fav. religion is now Voodoo
• If Theodora gets in the club, her traits should be Creative and Nationalistic
• added all the other Nationalistic leaders traits too
• Genghis Khan - added Taoism
• Ogedei Khan - Taoism instead of Buddhism
• added religions to modern rulers to represent their people's beliefs: Stalin (Christianity), Pol Pot (Buddhism), Mao (Confucianism)

If you don't like any of these, just ask/post your questions and suggestions

 

[AbsintheRed]

And just to start the whole thing, here are some ideas, including the very recent suggestions:

Change Suryavarman's religion to Hinduism
Gandhi's civic should be changed to Pacifism
Also, I really don't like that there is no Caste System for India. Maybe add that for Chandragupta?
David's favourite civic should be Theocracy IMO

Comments?

 

[The Capo]

Well, first of all thanks for doing this, that is quite an impressive list and chart. I also want to follow it up by saying that not all of this is confirmed of course, so the first focus/priority should really be on the base-civs on the mod. I know there is a lot of interest in the modular civs, but right now discussing them is going to take up time that could be used better.

That said, this is really helpful to me, because now I can reference your chart. A lot of the changes you have suggested are good, Caste System is perfect for Chandragupta (because it doesn't really make sense for the other leaders, Asoka being Buddhist, and of course Nehru and Gandhi wouldn't work with it). I think you are right about David, I think overall he should be a bit more aggressive, and a civic like that fits well. I'll also change Sury and Gandhi too, I agree with all of that.

But I think the next improtant things are to first decide on the final stats for Seafaring and Nationalistic, and then after that we gotta start reorganizing the spreading the traits out.

 

[Xyth]

But I think the next improtant things are to first decide on the final stats for Seafaring and Nationalistic, and then after that we gotta start reorganizing the spreading the traits out.

When you do decide on the final forms of them let me know. I'll have a go at writing any Python needed for them. Had lots of practice recently.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Of course, our main priority should be the first table of the leaders, which are already more or less decided. This means all the blue and some of the green civs to me.
In the end the final version of Diplomacy II will be balanced in all the ways we wanted to (traits for civs, trait combos for leaders, overall number of traits), so you don't have to worry about that.
Right now we just need good suggestions for all the missing parts in the first sheet

Speaking of which, I wanted to comment the LHs I wrote in the sheet for the blue civs. I would add most of them for sure, but of course these are just suggestions.
Before we decide on these, we should consider that there are very few female LHs, that's why I tried to find and suggested to add some more (along with a few other ones)

• Theodora: I remember that you don't really want to use 2 close leaders for the same civ, and it's perfectly reasonable. But the new version of Theodora is one of Ekmek's next few WIPs, so we shouldn't ignore her. I'm sure we can easily make her distinct enough from other Byzantine leaders by her traits and custom personality...
• Atotzotli: I know you use her as Lady Xoc right now, but IgorS made a new one recently. With little improvements/changes you can easily make her look even more different than your Salamasina. So we would have 2 awesome female LHs for that area too
• Cartimandua: You should finish her too, it was a really good start for that LH. Don't drop a cool concept like that.
• Wilhelmina: the art for this LH is not that good (that's why I marked it in yellow), but she was a significant ruler for the dutch. And, once again, she is a female leader. I'm sure with little improvements you could change her to a decent LH!
• Lalibela and Menelik: I'm even not sure currently which one do you plan to add. I would definietly vote for both. You should finish up Lalibela ASAP, he is a truly awesome LH
• Dangun: not as important as the other ones here, but the art is quite good for him, and Korea's founding leader would be a great add-on, even if he was semi-mythological
• Scheherazade: Again, an older LH. Mostly a reskin (similar to Wilhelmina), but a quite good one. You already said earlier that you are thinking of adding her. I would vote for yes, add after slight updates.
• Urukagina: You use him as Sargon right now. But IIRC there is a very good Sargon LH (who was originally made to be Sargon) in the database. If you add that, than this LH could be used as Urukagina, as he was originally intended to.

BTW: I made the first update to the sheet. Will keep doing that with the other things we decide.
Now waiting for any ideas and suggestions regarding on any of these things...

 

[The Capo]

When you do decide on the final forms of them let me know. I'll have a go at writing any Python needed for them. Had lots of practice recently.

Well the first issue here is whether or not we are going to give XP to spies, the issue there is that will require an SDK change, which won't be mac-compatible. I was going to release a Mac-compatible version too (unless you want to get bootcamp or something), in which case you will not be able to make the proper python for it (at least not yet). So why don't we do this for now:

Nationalistic:

• +2 Espionage Points per city
• +1 Happiness, +1 Culture per National Wonder (in city built only)
• Double Production speed of Jail, Intelligence Agency, Security Bureau, Mind Control Center
• And I was kind of thinking of one for spies, just to offset the spy promo thing, we can change this later. But maybe something like +50% Spy interception chance or something.

Seafaring:

• +1 Movement to all ships (ALL ships)
• Double Production speed of Harbor, Drydock, Customs House, Lighthouse
• Free promotion for Scouts/Explorers
• +1 Trade Routes in all Coastal Cities.

Is that more or less what we agreed upon? I took the wait time thing out of the Nationalistic trait because it seems that Spiritual actually does this as well (at least it did when I was playing as Isabella the other night).

I was also thinking of some type of feature for the Nationalistic trait that allowed you to use production for espionage points in your cities. I think I have seen that around somewhere, but maybe tie it into the trait somehow. This is another reason why I didn't want to get ahead of ourselves (i.e. the whole chart with new civs and leaders), because we still haven't finalized this yet. So before the next part is discussed any further (even though I am about to discuss it), can we PLEASE settle on the new triats first?

Of course, our main priority should be the first table of the leaders, which are already more or less decided. This means all the blue and some of the green civs to me.
In the end the final version of Diplomacy II will be balanced in all the ways we wanted to (traits for civs, trait combos for leaders, overall number of traits), so you don't have to worry about that.
Right now we just need good suggestions for all the missing parts in the first sheet

Speaking of which, I wanted to comment the LHs I wrote in the sheet for the blue civs. I would add most of them for sure, but of course these are just suggestions.
Before we decide on these, we should consider that there are very few female LHs, that's why I tried to find and suggested to add some more (along with a few other ones)

• Theodora: I remember that you don't really want to use 2 close leaders for the same civ, and it's perfectly reasonable. But the new version of Theodora is one of Ekmek's next few WIPs, so we shouldn't ignore her. I'm sure we can easily make her distinct enough from other Byzantine leaders by her traits and custom personality...
• Atotzotli: I know you use her as Lady Xoc right now, but IgorS made a new one recently. With little improvements/changes you can easily make her look even more different than your Salamasina. So we would have 2 awesome female LHs for that area too
• Cartimandua: You should finish her too, it was a really good start for that LH. Don't drop a cool concept like that.
• Wilhelmina: the art for this LH is not that good (that's why I marked it in yellow), but she was a significant ruler for the dutch. And, once again, she is a female leader. I'm sure with little improvements you could change her to a decent LH!
• Lalibela and Menelik: I'm even not sure currently which one do you plan to add. I would definietly vote for both. You should finish up Lalibela ASAP, he is a truly awesome LH
• Dangun: not as important as the other ones here, but the art is quite good for him, and Korea's founding leader would be a great add-on, even if he was semi-mythological
• Scheherazade: Again, an older LH. Mostly a reskin (similar to Wilhelmina), but a quite good one. You already said earlier that you are thinking of adding her. I would vote for yes, add after slight updates.
• Urukagina: You use him as Sargon right now. But IIRC there is a very good Sargon LH (who was originally made to be Sargon) in the database. If you add that, than this LH could be used as Urukagina, as he was originally intended to.

BTW: I made the first update to the sheet. Will keep doing that with the other things we decide.
Now waiting for any ideas and suggestions regarding on any of these things...

These are good ideas, but I don't want to add nearly any of them. I might add Theodora considering how good Ekmek's is. Lalibela is such a hassle right now, and I'd rather just leave him for much much later (maybe an update, or for the Deluxe edition of the mod). Cartimandua is another possibility for the update or Deluxe version, but I don't want to spend the time on LHs right now. I am much busier in RL than I was a month or so ago, and I'd rather focus on getting the mod finished than work on LHs. I also don't want my work to suffer because I am doing too many things at once. I don't like the Sargon that is out there, Igor's LH looks too much like Salamasina for my tastes, there is nothing to use for Wilhelmina, and Dangun and Scheherezede are not real people. So, if anything I might add Theodora.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Capo, I don't think we have to finalize the traits right now. There are still a couple of Playtests ahead of us, so we can (and have to) test them out anyway.

I think we all got to a consencus that a nationalistic trait with espionage flavour and a seafaring one with some commercial and exploring flavour will be added

I think a better term for the seafaring one would be Mercantile though
Bonuses for these two are also more or less decided IMO, at least enough for a playtest.

Mercantile:

• +1 movement to all naval units
• +1 TR in all cities
• DPS of Harbor, Custom House, Drydock (maybe even Market and Lighthouse)
• Free promotions for Scouts and Explorers (Mobility, Sentry)

Nationalistic:

• +2 espionage points per city
• +1 happiness, +1-2 culture per National Wonder (in city built only) OR reduced cost of National Wonders (if the happiness bonus is hard to solve in xml)
• DPS of Jail, Intelligence Agency, Security Bureau, Mind Control Center
• a free promotion for spies
• minimal wait between revolutions may be still in, it's not included in the Spiritual trait (just in the Cristo Redento wonder)

Also, I just wrote this in the other thread, altough these are just the very first ideas, and a better name is certainly needed
Nomadic:

• reduced or no maintenance cost from distance of cities
• bonus yield form pillaging
• some kind of mobility based promotion for your armies (Mobility or Flanking for example)
• DPS of Stable

Btw, I think we should mainly keep the finalizing traits conversation on the other thread, because there is all of our previos posts and infos for that.
And I don't want to start this all over here again, it would be harder to keep track of this in two different places...

 

[The Capo]

Agreed. I posted something there anyway, I'll quote your last post here on that thread.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I am going to totally vouch for Theodora, if only because I think she is totally awesome.

 

[Edgecrusher]

If my vote means anything, I would not put Theodora in, regardless of how great her artwork is, for the simple fact that Justinian is in. Their personalities would be very similar, the same way Ferdinand and Isabella (and Philip II, Charles V) are similar.

A 3rd Byzantine Leader from a different era would be a better option IMO)

If her artwork is fantastic and cannot be ignored, having her in some kind of "Leaderhead" Module, which adds a number of leaders from the non-basic release of the mod should be the option.

 

[The Capo]

If my vote means anything, I would not put Theodora in, regardless of how great her artwork is, for the simple fact that Justinian is in. Their personalities would be very similar, the same way Ferdinand and Isabella (and Philip II, Charles V) are similar.

A 3rd Byzantine Leader from a different era would be a better option IMO)

If her artwork is fantastic and cannot be ignored, having her in some kind of "Leaderhead" Module, which adds a number of leaders from the non-basic release of the mod should be the option.

I am basically leaning in the same direction as EdgeCrusher, however I will say this, depending on when she is finished she is either in or out. There is really no purpose to putting her in a leaderhead expansion, because there won't be one. I'll either add her in the deluxe edition or I won't. If she is finished before this mod is released then there is no reason for me to wait for the deluxe edition (the only reason I am doing that in the first place is because I don't have time to work on leaders that may make it into the deluxe version but not this one at the moment). So basically, I'm sticking to my guns. If she is finished before the release, and I like her, I'll put her in. If she isn't then the whole discussion is moot.

And I also want to add that Theodora and Justinian could certainly have different traits. I mean, Justinian is spiritual to start with, I wouldn't call Theodora (who was an exotic dancer/prostitute basically) Spiritual. And you can say all you want about "different times" and all that, but we're talking about Holy Byzantium here, not the orgies of Rome. In fact, historically Justinian and Theodora complimented eachother as basically co-emperors. Sometimes Theodora had to intervene in a decision Justinian was going to make, and set him on the right course (the Nika riots), so I might make her something like Charismatic/Creative and Nationalistic (for the "Byzantine" espionage aspect).

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yeah, I like the idea
We could go with Creative and Nationalistic for her, that won't be a common combination for modern leaders.
I mean most Nationalistic leaders are far from Creative, so it's a perfect combo for Theodora


EDIT: Also, I have 2 questions:
Crazy Horse don't have a fav. religion. I did not check that yet, so I rather ask
Was it intentional? All the other native leaders have Shamanism.

For Sundiata Keita and Sunni Ali Ber, I think both Voodoo and Islam is ok. They converted to Islam, but nevertheless used some kind of Vodun style religion too:
"Though he was a Muslim, Sundiata also exploited local religion, building a reputation as a man of powerful magic"
"Opinions vary on whether Sonni Ali can correctly be described as a Muslim. He ruled over both urban Muslims and rural non-Muslims at a time when the traditional co-existence of different beliefs was being challenged. His adherence to African animism while also professing Islam leads some writers to describe him as outwardly or nominally Muslim"

I would go with Voodoo for both of them, because the lack of this religon in the game

 

[The Capo]

Well now Theodora is up to the gods. And by "the gods" I mean Ekmek.

Yeah, I gave Sundiata Keita Vodun for that very reason. I had no idea Sunni Ali Ber was so loose with his religious beliefs though. Most of the time Vodun/Vodoo is mixed with another religion, like Santeria and Voodoo (in the Americas) are mixed with Catholicism.

In fact this is often the case in world history, and sometimes I went in the direction of the "lesser" or non-official religion for some leaders. For instance all of the Viking leaders are followers of Aesir, when in reality, I think, it would only really be Ragnar that would be a follower of Aesir (the others being Christian), and Ragnar may not even have existed. But, the Norse beliefs remained prevalent, especially in that era, so I gave them that. I'm sure they still wore Thor's hammer, and may have asked for his good graces at sea.

And yes, Crazy Horse was a mistake, he'll be Shamanistic, good job on catching that.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Alright, I made the next update with Shamanism for Crazy Horse, Voodoo for Sundiata and Sunni.

Also, still sticking with religions, I found this conversation in the old thread:

Another thing, Nehru was an Atheist, but I was going to give him Hinduism anyway because I'd rather have India choose Hinduism in the Choose Religion setting so they don't block another civ from their religion (like if they chose Olympic Pantheon or something). You think that's fine or should I just give him NONE?

I think a leader who was an atheist should get the religion of his people. I gave Mao Confucianism and I gave Stalin Christianity, so I think you should give Nehru a religion.

I actually think I set Mao (and Stalin for that matter) at NONE, but I could always change them to Confucianism and Christianity, I think I currently have Salamasina at NONE too. Should I leave it or should I give her Shamanism? (even though it is flavored towards the Native American civs).

I kinda like the idea, it does make sence to give these leaders the religion of their people.
Right now Nehru got Hinduism, but Stalin and Mao don't have a fav. religion. Any thought on this?

 

[The Capo]

Yeah, go Confucianism and Christianity. Not a lot of leaders have Confucianism anyway.

 

[The Almighty dF]

I still wanna suggest changing Amenhotep III to Amenhotep I.

1. The art doesn't have to change.
2. Egypt already has an extremely culture-based leader (Hatty) and a relatively culture based leader (Rameses II). Throwing in Amenhotep I would give them a leader that represents a different side of Egypt: The somewhat tyranical imperialistic side.

Then again, I'm not sure what side of Ptolemy you're going for, so it's possible Egypt already has its expansionist.

Also, of the suggested purple civs, I fully agree with:
Croatia*
Slovenia
Bangladesh
Burma*
Kazakh*
Iraq*
Seleucid
Somalia*
Swahili*
Uganda* (Come on, just imagine playing as Idi "I'm going to pick you up and bite you" Amin.)
Jamaica
Olmec
Bolivia
Malaysia

* Means I -really- agree with this.
Especially the African civs, as we really need more for that continent.

And my suggestions for the Just For Fun section:
CSA
Soviet Union
Nazi Germany
Utah

 

[The Capo]

For now I prefer Amenhotep III, I think he was a better pharoah and we know more about him than we do Amehotep I. I could be convinced to change my mind though.

 

[cybrxkhan]

If you want a more "tyrannical" and military-focused leader, there are MANY options for Egypt (you probably know them anyways, but I'll list them just for laughs?):

- Thuthmose III
- Ramses III
- Seti I
- Amenemhat I, II, and III
- Senusret I, II, and III
- Narmer
- Khufu (not much of a military expander, but later in antiquity he was considered to be a tyrant, even though the story doesn't have much a basis)
- Necho (the guy who funded the expedition that was supposed to circumnavigate Africa, even though it probably only went part way or something like that)
- Sheshonq I (He's Libyan, but he was one of the best Pharaohs during Egypt's age of "decline")
- Ahmose I (Ahmose II also wouldn't be a bad choice, even though he isn't as well-known)

 

[The Capo]

This really belongs in the other thread (i.e. the New Leader thread), but anyway, why is everyone against Amenhotep III?

And I thought we were making Ramesses more aggressive, not to mention Ptolemy is already rather aggressive.