[R&F] Governor's breaking my immersion

[nzcamel]

I'm interested in the ideas here of adding some variety to governors. As long as they're part of the game, why not?

Why not extend this logic to the civilization leaders? No animation, no voice, no native gear, just a generic picture.
The capital generates loyalty because my palace is there. In the same way Governors generate loyalty because they are my subordinate rulers. I will have to see them at council meetings to find out what's happening in my kingdom and at performance reviews so there is plenty of facetime. If I have an Audience Chamber, that gives special consideration to cities with Governors because they have access to me personally more easily.

Well because unlike the governors there is nothing immersion breaking about how my fellow ruling elite are portrayed in terms of their Civilisation.
Though I can spin a yarn about how each leader gifted me a lovely picture of themselves when we first met; and every time I get the detailed dispatches from my diplomats on how their meetings went with Hojo, thanks to the picture I can picture that look of surprise crossing his face when I refuse his deal. Takes me right back. I have my court bard playing the same music that I heard upon our introduction - nothing like a song to put you right in the moment! I can smell the Kenzo Flower's as we speak.

My civilization is an ethnostate up until Early Empire at the latest but every barbarian, city state, or tribal village I meet is a different ethnicity, so there are plenty of people to recruit from.

Very subtly different unless you're crossing the world like the Great Khan! I suppose on the smaller maps many play on, that is an easier feat...

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't mind the governors as is, but the only weird thing is when you have multiple Amanis in city-states. Wish there was an easy way to fix that. Having unique names would seem to confusing. Like for example I can never keep track of my spy names. Certainly not my diplomats with their gossip messages.

 

[Morningcalm]

I don't mind the governors as is, but the only weird thing is when you have multiple Amanis in city-states. Wish there was an easy way to fix that. Having unique names would seem to confusing. Like for example I can never keep track of my spy names. Certainly not my diplomats with their gossip messages.

Agreed 100%. It's weird to have multiple Amani's. It would be nice if we could customize the governor appearance and name at least. We can already rename units, so....

 

[Scaramanga]

Having the same named governors for each civilization isn't any more awkward than having the same civ leaders across multiple instances and playthroughs of the game.

 

[UWHabs]

I don't mind the governors as is, but the only weird thing is when you have multiple Amanis in city-states. Wish there was an easy way to fix that. Having unique names would seem to confusing. Like for example I can never keep track of my spy names. Certainly not my diplomats with their gossip messages.

Well, the fact that they're the only governor in city-states means it's at least a little less confusing, but I do agree that when I open the city-state list and I see one Amani in each, I wish there was an easy way to see which one was MINE.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Agreed 100%. It's weird to have multiple Amani's.

The answer is already in this thread: generic governors (like spies) who could be named historically for each civ. E.g:

Arnold Schwarzenegger (America)
Lord Mountbatten (England)
Sir Oliver Goonetilleke (England)
Willem Janszoon (The Netherlands)
Etc.

 

[Duuk]

The answer is already in this thread: generic governors (like spies) who could be named historically for each civ. E.g:

Arnold Schwarzenegger (America)
Lord Mountbatten (England)
Sir Oliver Goonetilleke (England)
Willem Janszoon (The Netherlands)
Etc.

That's the part I don't get. It would have taken MUCH less time for the governors to not be animated cartoon heads AND they could have given us a set of governor names unique to each civ (or, if not available, vaguely language-translations of their function ie: "diplomatico" if there was somehow no viable diplomat governor for Spain). And yes, I know there would obviously be an available diplomat for Spain. But I didn't feel like googling the Sumerian word for "diplomat"

 

[Archon_Wing]

You should be able to rename them.

 

[Morningcalm]

Having historical names for governors is a nice solution too, maybe especially so if coupled with the ability to rename them for hilarious purposes. I would like to be able to pick an industra advisor for say, Khmer/Korea/China etc who isn't just a Caucasian in a stereotypical hat, also. Customizable appearances please. The advisors surely can't all be clones.

Having the same named governors for each civilization isn't any more awkward than having the same civ leaders across multiple instances and playthroughs of the game.

Completely disagree. The governors are fictitious cartoon characters who appear serving multiple civilizations simultaneously in the same game (through cloning, teleportation, or maybe all foreign advisors in these worlds are quadruplets named Amani who all served different civilizations out of mutually shared hatred). The civ leaders are historically flavored personages drawn from real life that serve one entity each per game.

 

[Rosty K]

Well, the fact that they're the only governor in city-states means it's at least a little less confusing, but I do agree that when I open the city-state list and I see one Amani in each, I wish there was an easy way to see which one was MINE.

YOUR Amani has slightly more intensive color than other Amanis actually. Not quite more intensive enough though.

 

[Zuizgond]

I hate cartoony graphics in video games. It reminds me of games for tablets or facebook games.

 

[Metecury]

They should treat governors like more powerful great people. Give em different and unique skill trees and use special governor points earned through government buildings and policies.

 

[Hammurabbit]

I would prefer no-name, no-face (or at least no cartoony face) Governors. It's not consisting with the the civ 6 universe in my opinion, to have multiple copies of the same individual.

 

[Karpius]

I too would prefer a generic Governor system that would include a broad list of promotions available to each Governor which the player can choose as desired.

I should add, however, I am also an advocate for a generic leader system, a generic civilization system, and a generic great person system.

At the very least, make it an option to build one's own Civ using an available list of traits and name the Civ, leader and everything else.

 

[UWHabs]

I too would prefer a generic Governor system that would include a broad list of promotions available to each Governor which the player can choose as desired.

I should add, however, I am also an advocate for a generic leader system, a generic civilization system, and a generic great person system.

At the very least, make it an option to build one's own Civ using an available list of traits and name the Civ, leader and everything else.

Yeah, maybe a governor system a bit like the civ 5 ideology trees would make sense. So you have a bunch of tier 1 promotions to choose from, get to pick a couple of those, and those lead into less but probably more powerful choices in tiers 2-3. While I'm fine with units having limited promotion trees (would be too hard to think of otherwise whether my unit had the "anti cavalry on Marsh" promotion), I have found even with only a few games in that the governor promotions get a tad repetitive and boring.

 

[acluewithout]

Anton Stenger had this to say about Governors.

"In previous versions of Civilization, “governor” often referred to the AI behavior you could set for a city to act on your behalf. In this expansion, though, they are the opposite. Sending a Governor to a city is a way for the player to make an active decision about the development of one of their cities, and grow in a specific direction. Much like how districts operate in the base game, Governors are a way to specialize your cities. The difference: Governors have their own set of unique powerful bonuses and can move between controlled cities."

Does anyone feel that Governors specialise their cities?

I feel like all I do is pick the chop-chop one, or the extra builder charge one, and then just lose all interest.

Perhaps Governors should have been something more like a spy unit - build them based on capacity, random promotions from a pool, then assign them to cities. Maybe they'd still give loyalty, but their promotions you impact yields etc.

Then, perhaps what are currently Governors, could be made something else: like great families or dysnasties or estates or guilds, and could have been tied to specific cities.

The way Governors are now they feel like something out of cluedo or guess who ("Was it Pingala, in the study, with a candle stick holder?").

 

[Hammurabbit]

Anton Stenger had this to say about Governors.

Does anyone feel that Governors specialise their cities?

I agree its a bit questionable, you typically move the governors around quite a bit.
I also feel they are adding an extra level of planning and micromanagement that I don't particularly enjoy ("ok, so in 3 turns my builder will be ready, then it will take me 2 turns to move the builder to the forest tile, so I better move Magnus now..."). I think I like Amani the most in terms of mechanics. She's a way to have some influence over loyalty and an important chess piece for the city states game.

 

[AlannaT]

Does anyone feel that Governors specialise their cities?

I realize this is most likely a rhetorical question and the assumption is that nobody feels that way but I do.

If I recruit Moshka early it's usually a game focused on religion and he will be stationed in my Holy City for most of the game. Consequently I will buy all apostles in this city and build all the faith building and happily fight religious battles in its territory. In essence this Holy City truly becomes the center of the religion and not just a city with 4x religious pressure.

If I recruit Magnus I often move him around early but if I choose to promote him fully his role changes and the city he stays in is the designated production powerhouse in my civilization. (The city does not become the production powerhouse just because I place him there. But if I have a city with very good production I can supplement that specialisation with Magnus and a few additional IZs in neighboring towns.)

I can tell stories like this about most governors although they don't happen every game. Sometimes Moshka is just a mobile loyalty boost and Magnus continues to jump around. But there are so games where you can use the abilities of some governors to an above average extend and in those games they certainly feel like city specializers to me.

Circling back to the OP: I personally don't mind the names and the portraits but I could deal as well with generic ones like in the screenshot. But then again I do like art style and quotes and lightheartedness of Civ 6 in contrast to a lot of other very vocal people. And maybe a discussion about the game mechanics should take place in the other thread about governors and this here could focus on representation / UI?

 

[UWHabs]

I realize this is most likely a rhetorical question and the assumption is that nobody feels that way but I do.

If I recruit Moshka early it's usually a game focused on religion and he will be stationed in my Holy City for most of the game. Consequently I will buy all apostles in this city and build all the faith building and happily fight religious battles in its territory. In essence this Holy City truly becomes the center of the religion and not just a city with 4x religious pressure.

If I recruit Magnus I often move him around early but if I choose to promote him fully his role changes and the city he stays in is the designated production powerhouse in my civilization. (The city does not become the production powerhouse just because I place him there. But if I have a city with very good production I can supplement that specialisation with Magnus and a few additional IZs in neighboring towns.)

I can tell stories like this about most governors although they don't happen every game. Sometimes Moshka is just a mobile loyalty boost and Magnus continues to jump around. But there are so games where you can use the abilities of some governors to an above average extend and in those games they certainly feel like city specializers to me.

Circling back to the OP: I personally don't mind the names and the portraits but I could deal as well with generic ones like in the screenshot. But then again I do like art style and quotes and lightheartedness of Civ 6 in contrast to a lot of other very vocal people. And maybe a discussion about the game mechanics should take place in the other thread about governors and this here could focus on representation / UI?

Yeah, I get the same. Basically, Pingala stays in my "science and culture" hub the whole game and rarely if ever moves.
Magnus is usually mobile, but in my most recent game, I noticed that my 2nd city, which had my government plaza district, also happened to be where I was sending all my empire's trade routes to, conveniently had like 4 strategic resources in the city, and also happened to be in the middle of my empire and so could be near a few factories. I mean, I had already won the game basically since my army was rampaging across the globe, but I ended up promoting Magnus and it made for a strong industrial heart of my empire (at least until my Petra desert hill/Ruhr Valley city came online).
Reyna is best suited to my best Harbor/Commerce Hub triangle city, and then that becomes a strong economic city (bonus if it grows large, and then the extra production from the shipyard usually adds enough mid-game to keep it building).

So I can can definitely see how it forms a way to specialize cities. Heck, even Liang often stays planted in a city for me as my "builder city", although that's probably more due to laziness than anything. Other times she moves around to wherever I can plant fisheries.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I think in terms of representation they hit a couple of key goals:

• Instantly recognizable - you can immediately tell which governor is in which city, friend or foe
• Clarity - the governors stand out, there's no mistaking their look in the city bar

Those two things are really on target. I might've preferred a slightly less caricatured look, but otherwise I think they're fine. I think this is a case where clarity has to take the lead over everything else. It would be nice to have a mod that customizes the look for each region, but I'm not opposed to the current system. I guess they had to choose between total abstraction or set looks, I think anything in between those two points would be too confusing.