Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Added the latest batch from this morning to the OP, and got to thinking about Assassination and Sneaky Great Revolutionaries.
First, Assassins - given that Civ is full of named individuals: Leaders, Governors, Great People, there is in fact a lot of scope for a mechanic to shake up your Civ by removing some of them. Enter the Assassins, which I have added a few to those suggested and marked them all with a (+) in the list. These could, of course, be included as nameless mechanics in the Spy System, one Spy Mission being the removal of a named personage. But I'd prefer to assume that Civ VII is going to emphasize the individualistic mature of having named personages everywhere they can (Leaders for City States and Barbarian Groups? Named Great Envoys? -There's a lot of scope for increasing this in the game) so having some of them become Targets is a legitimate addition to the game.
More debatable is whether this should be extended to some of the more notorious internal State Mass Murderers of history, among whom I would include Torquemada, Yezhov, Beriya, Himmler - not including the numerous Civilization Leaders that fall into this category, because the game has never 'judged' those types except to keep the ones still fresh in living memory largely absent. Suitably ancestral mass murder seems to be acceptable in game/marketing terms.
For now, I'm not including or singling out Non-Leader Mass Assassins, because I think getting a named Assassin and turning him lose on anther Civ's Great People or having him turn up and remove one of your own is going to be controversial enough.
Second, Stealth Great Revolutionaries. In most cases, Great Revolutionaries will show up because of something in your Civ: discontent, negative Loyalty, dissatisfaction with the way things are going because of obvious Negative In-Game Conditions like a Dark Age, loss of Capital, etc. But some of the Great Revolutionaries suggested have a different history: they showed up because of largely personal or religious dissatisfaction that do not lend themselves to hard and fast rules for their appearance.
Specifically, I was considering An-Lushan, who was really a Great General turned Revolutionary. I suggest then, that his characteristics would be:
At random replaces any existing Great General in your Civ. (If you have no Great General in your Civ, Hooray! You dodged a Major Bullet)
When he appears, all Units within his radius of influence immediately become Barbarian Units under his command. IF they manage to take any of your Cities, they will immediately become hostile City States.
Especially with the addition of Assassins, 'stealth' Great People become almost a necessity: you'd have to be a fool to voluntarily let Guy Fawkes or Vladimir Lenin or Gavril Princip run around in your Civ, but it seems to be a shame to leave their potentially Game Changing effects out, since it is precisely what Great Revolutionaries are proposed to provide.
We have examples of the advisors, social reformers and consorts in the lists already, but it occurs to me that this could include distinctly Unofficial 'advisors' as well: like several French Kings' mistresses who even at the time were considered to have Far Too Much influence on the running of the State, the intriguers in the Harem that ran the Ottoman Empire for a while, and completely Off The Wall 'advisers' like Rasputin. Let me think about this, because there's scope for a lot of things here . . .
First, Assassins - given that Civ is full of named individuals: Leaders, Governors, Great People, there is in fact a lot of scope for a mechanic to shake up your Civ by removing some of them. Enter the Assassins, which I have added a few to those suggested and marked them all with a (+) in the list. These could, of course, be included as nameless mechanics in the Spy System, one Spy Mission being the removal of a named personage. But I'd prefer to assume that Civ VII is going to emphasize the individualistic mature of having named personages everywhere they can (Leaders for City States and Barbarian Groups? Named Great Envoys? -There's a lot of scope for increasing this in the game) so having some of them become Targets is a legitimate addition to the game.
More debatable is whether this should be extended to some of the more notorious internal State Mass Murderers of history, among whom I would include Torquemada, Yezhov, Beriya, Himmler - not including the numerous Civilization Leaders that fall into this category, because the game has never 'judged' those types except to keep the ones still fresh in living memory largely absent. Suitably ancestral mass murder seems to be acceptable in game/marketing terms.
For now, I'm not including or singling out Non-Leader Mass Assassins, because I think getting a named Assassin and turning him lose on anther Civ's Great People or having him turn up and remove one of your own is going to be controversial enough.
Second, Stealth Great Revolutionaries. In most cases, Great Revolutionaries will show up because of something in your Civ: discontent, negative Loyalty, dissatisfaction with the way things are going because of obvious Negative In-Game Conditions like a Dark Age, loss of Capital, etc. But some of the Great Revolutionaries suggested have a different history: they showed up because of largely personal or religious dissatisfaction that do not lend themselves to hard and fast rules for their appearance.
Specifically, I was considering An-Lushan, who was really a Great General turned Revolutionary. I suggest then, that his characteristics would be:
At random replaces any existing Great General in your Civ. (If you have no Great General in your Civ, Hooray! You dodged a Major Bullet)
When he appears, all Units within his radius of influence immediately become Barbarian Units under his command. IF they manage to take any of your Cities, they will immediately become hostile City States.
Especially with the addition of Assassins, 'stealth' Great People become almost a necessity: you'd have to be a fool to voluntarily let Guy Fawkes or Vladimir Lenin or Gavril Princip run around in your Civ, but it seems to be a shame to leave their potentially Game Changing effects out, since it is precisely what Great Revolutionaries are proposed to provide.
I like where Great Ministers are. Would extend their range to include cabinet members, advisors, regents, possibly social reformers that don't fit another category. Something that might work well for the new type of great person would also be consorts who wielded significant power but did not necessarily lead a country in their own right. This is where a figure like Catherine de' Medici makes more sense to me.
We have examples of the advisors, social reformers and consorts in the lists already, but it occurs to me that this could include distinctly Unofficial 'advisors' as well: like several French Kings' mistresses who even at the time were considered to have Far Too Much influence on the running of the State, the intriguers in the Harem that ran the Ottoman Empire for a while, and completely Off The Wall 'advisers' like Rasputin. Let me think about this, because there's scope for a lot of things here . . .