How the civtraits should be obtained

[Loppan Torkel]

How do you want the civtraits to be obtained?

I made up my mind when I kept losing as the English, which as a civ is at too big disadvantage at the beginning compared to other civs because of their traits. There's really no reason why the civs should get all the traits at the start of the game.
But at the same time I would like to adjust my style of playing according to the civ I use at the time, not the other way around. The civs in civ4 should resemble the reallife civs imo.
Therefor I'd like to see the traits given, predetermined which ones and when, during the course of the game.

 

[dh_epic]

A combination of starting traits and acquiring traits has merit, in my mind.

That way someone who plays militaristically can be glad they've gained a militaristic bonus to their Civ. Or, in another sense, someone who plays militaristically can't be pissed off that they acquire a militaristic bonus over all other bonuses.

It forces players down a specific path, and keeps them sticking to choices... something missing from Civ 3, where you can basically expand, expand, expand, and use that as a bounding board to any play style you want. After being a ruthless conqueror, you can be a cultural powerhouse, an economic powerhouse, a tech powerhouse, and it all comes from the same source -- expansion. I'd like to see that change.

 

[mitsho]

As I have already said, I want them be bound to the leaders. Each civ should have three leaders (minimum one female) to chose from. That way, you can play a civ without having to have 'bad traits' for your playstyle: You simply choose another leader. Another plus is, the AI-players have different playstyles also. But of course, there would have to be more traits.
As an example, I often use France: (This example is with civ3-traits)
France:
Leader : traits : AI-playstyle
Joan of Arc : militaristic, religious : aggressive, conquering
Louis XIV : religious, commercial : isolating, cultural
Napoleon : expansionistic, industrial : expansionistic, space ship winner

mfG mitsho

 

[Colonel]

My idea is great but I cant remember where i posted it.Instead of civs getting traits, each city would get a trait. So if you have one of you interor cities with mines and lots of production it would get industrious, while a city on the sea with high production would get sea fareing, and so on.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

My idea is great but I cant remember where i posted it.Instead of civs getting traits, each city would get a trait. So if you have one of you interor cities with mines and lots of production it would get industrious, while a city on the sea with high production would get sea fareing, and so on.

So in civ-perspective the traits would be determined by your playstyle and most civs would end up pretty similar to eachother?!

As I have already said, I want them be bound to the leaders. Each civ should have three leaders (minimum one female) to chose from. That way, you can play a civ without having to have 'bad traits' for your playstyle: You simply choose another leader. Another plus is, the AI-players have different playstyles also. But of course, there would have to be more traits.
As an example, I often use France: (This example is with civ3-traits)
France:
Leader : traits : AI-playstyle
Joan of Arc : militaristic, religious : aggressive, conquering
Louis XIV : religious, commercial : isolating, cultural
Napoleon : expansionistic, industrial : expansionistic, space ship winner

There might be some problem coming up with three leaders for all civs, but I wouldn't take any offense if Zulu would get only one leader or if France would get four. If this idea is implemented I would like if the traits came during the game rather than at the start.

 

[mitsho]

Of course there are problems with the Zulu or the Aztecs, but the ones that are not the Main Great Leaders can be militaristic, religious, etc leaders in a game. I'm sure there is a workaround on that.
My idea is that each leader represents the civilization during a specific age. And therefore it has the traits that the country had at that time. And therefore I would object Napoleon suddenly becoming a seafaring nation... So, I would like to see the traits predetermined (in my sense above), but of course, they don't need to be there from the beginning.

I also could think of having a civ (scandinavians) and what leader it gets in a specific game, the names change (Leader A --> Scandinavians/Vikings; Leader B --> Sweden; Leader C --> Denmark). Here we could add another leader and would then have 4 leader for this civ. Ok, 4 goes, but not five. I would like to keep the number of leaders per civ constant (3 leaders, with some exceptions 4)

mfG mitsho

 

[dh_epic]

The multiple leaders with different traits idea is quite interesting. In fact, it kind of opens the game up to surprise. For example, I might know that I'll encounter Egypt, but I'm not sure if I'll encounter Cleopatra or Nasser -- so I wouldn't know if they'd be competing directly with me or not.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I would keep the traits (depending on the actual leader sounds good). The tech tree could be influenced more by the traits. I suggest 1 tech per age and trait, these techs would not bet tradeable and must be researched before advancing. You get boni from these techs which correlate with the trait (militaristic-units, agri-enhanced growth,...you get the idea). This would imo affect your playstyle more then now, you have to rely more on your civ´s strengths in order to compete.
To let the playstyle determine the traits is just the wrong way around.

 

[mitsho]

I agree with you, but you still should be able to decide how you want to play with this civ. And that can be done nicely by the "traits per leader"-system.

I know I'm perhaps pushing this too far, but if I want one thing in civ4, then it is this!

mfG mitsho

 

[dh_epic]

mitsho, it's a solid idea. And most of all, it's pretty much painless for the developers. Mind you, the leaderheads would probably be the most painful part considering the amount of memory they could potentially use up on a CD. I would seriously rather have three low quality leader heads (or procedurally generated leaderheads) than one high quality leaderhead, though.

I'm with you!

 

[Paradigne]

I would keep the traits (depending on the actual leader sounds good). The tech tree could be influenced more by the traits. I suggest 1 tech per age and trait, these techs would not bet tradeable and must be researched before advancing. You get boni from these techs which correlate with the trait (militaristic-units, agri-enhanced growth,...you get the idea). This would imo affect your playstyle more then now, you have to rely more on your civ´s strengths in order to compete.
To let the playstyle determine the traits is just the wrong way around.

I kind of like the idea of the tech's BEING tradable. That way you would have to at least PLAY nice with a civ who had a unique trait that you wanted, It would still be possible to learn all techs, but only through diplomacy...

PS hehe he said boni hehe (beavis impersonation)

 

[riadsala]

As I have already said, I want them be bound to the leaders. Each civ should have three leaders (minimum one female) to chose from.

That's silly. The sexes of the leaders should be determined by which great characters from history can be supplied by the relevant civ's. In cases where there are famous female leaders, (Eygpt, England, Russia, France, etc), no problem.

But I think it would be silly to insist for a female leader for every civ, as I doubt there is one.

Leader characters should be created on merit of historical greatness, or whatever (with a slight leaning towards the women, as there havn't been as many).

An easy example, who would be an American female leader? They've never had one. Let alone one who's shaped the world.

 

[mitsho]

@riadsala, this 'minimum one female-leader' was a rule, not a law I just wanted to say that women should be preferred. You get it.
And I for myself would have nothing against Dido being the leader of Carthage, although she isn't really a real-life person (or is she, I'm not sure, but I believe not).

mfG mitsho

PS: America will have Hillary Clinton as a leader in 4 years, won't they? (remark: there's a smilie)

 

[dh_epic]

You'd have three leaders for each Civ with different playstyles. Nasser's Egypt is different from Cleopatra's Egypt, not because one is a man and one is a woman, but because they brought out different traits in the Civ. So one could pick two different kinds of Egypt, essentially.

(In fact, if there were a Civil War or secession feature in the game, the leaders would come quite in handy. You, Napoleon, would be in charge of North France, while Joan of Arc would emerge as the leader of a new breakaway South French republic.)

And Hillary Clinton won't be able to run for party leadership until 2012 (And even then, she'd have to beat out the vice president in the primary race.)

 

[mitsho]

@dh_epic There is the big question: Would the new 'muslim' egypt belong to the civ4-egypt civilization? Cause they are not really resembling them, are they? But ok, I'm all for diversity. But then we need to have at least one more change: The capital cities (e.g. first city a civ builts) can change from leader to leader

mfG mitsho

[PS: I don't want this thread to get off topic, so this is my last comment on that: Do you really believe that Kerry will win this election? I doubt it. But of course, he would be better than Bush - having not said that he will be a good choice.... from a european/swiss point of view]

 

[Mr. Blonde]

@Paradigne: i just want the traits to be of more importance. there should be techs unique to your civ and I think research needs to be slowed down. Additionally there should be ways that backward civs only fall behind some techs but not a whole age. I mean, you can have 3 neighbours which are two ages in front and you can do nothing to keep up. In RL tech is distributed more diffuse, research is published and commonly accessible.

 

[nothing here]

Yar instead a traites boy, nay traites at all. It's all in the range. Yer wanna be able to be open range with these things. Yer wanna be able to advance as well improve your advances and yer ability to advance. THis may not be customary to yer all guarians out there. Yar, yer needen to be looken at the abilities of greater range says I. Yer can have it anyway with the bases of free range. YEr cna make a killen in exactly what yer want at anygiven time. Yer like historically corect applications lads. The yer gonna like the idea of free range. Yer make yer own acheivements by maken the possibilities come through with more defined targeting. Then you may proceed elsewhere and in sense of logic as yer wishes to do so.

 

[El Loco]

your playstyle should dicatate the traits.

 

[CivEconomist]

El loco beat me to it, i feel that your playstyle, irrigating a lot or starting many battles would lead to the specific traits.

 

[citizen001]

Maybe each Civilization could have every single trait, but some civs have a less 'percentage' of a trait than others. e.g. China could have 40% Militaristic, 10%Religious, 30% Expansionist etc.