How would you change Cyrus' agenda?

[TahamiTsunami]

I understand how the leader agendas only reflect one aspect of a leader's personality because trying to fit everything would make the agendas too complicated and it would also make so many leaders too similar to each other. However, many of us seem to agree that Civ VI's Cyrus, as cool as he is, is a bit too focused on being a sly backstabber (which, from what I've heard, would be a pretty appropriate agenda/personality for Hammurabi).

With that in mind, I've been thinking about how to change his agenda from Opportunist to something that can better reflect his being a fair ruler without having to change his ability. One idea I have is that his ability could be renamed to Cyrus Cylinder where he likes civs that have high happiness in cities that they've conquered and dislikes civs that have low happiness in cities that they've conquered. That way, he could keep his Fall of Babylon bonus to conquer cities. Something that I would also love to keep is his rivalry with Tomyris but I'm not too sure if her agenda would need to be changed a whole lot. If a change is needed, perhaps her new agenda (not sure what to name it, perhaps Queen's Fury, Queen's Revenge or something like it) would be where she dislikes civs that keep conquered cities.

Let me know what you guys think. Its extremely unlikely that Firaxis would change any of this (it would require new voice lines and animations) but I think it would be fun to discuss it.

 

[Morningcalm]

Cyrus historically liked to conquer lots, and was tolerant of his newly conquered people's beliefs. He should like civilizations that have multiple religions in their empire and who have taken at least some land in war in my opinion. Or maybe just the first (multiple religions in the empire), though it does seem like it would fit an Indian leader like Ashoka or Chandragupta more. Alternatively he should like empires with high extra amenities, to represent people's contentedness with the new rulership (as people were contented with Cyrus' rulership, including and especially the Jewish people).

(And yes, backstabber agenda fits Hammurabi better than most other historical figures that are likely to appear in Civ games. He backstabbed multiple allies and conquered each one in turn to create his Babylonian empire. But he was also the "Bani Matim" responsible for vast civic improvements in his empire, so Hammurabi could also have an agenda whereby he likes people with high amounts of (undamaged) improvements and infrastructure. For more on Hammurabi's backstabbing, civic improvements (including his Code of laws) and conquests, see https://www.ancient.eu/hammurabi/)

As for Tomyris, Firaxis' current agenda title of "Backstab Averse" is sadly ahistorical and unimmersive (in contrast to the much better *named* agendas for Catherine de Medici and Pericles for example). I would suggest "Honorable Warrior" or suchlike. Essentially her rage at Cyrus was the deceitful way in which he beat her son. There was nothing surprising or backstabby about Cyrus' attack on the Scythians, as Cyrus and Tomyris had corresponded before and Tomyris rejected Cyrus' marriage offer, likely full well knowing he would come for her land.

 

[Lord Lakely]

Positive Modifier: + relations when attacking weaker opponents or enemies over Civs are already at war with. Approves of backstabbing and joint warmongering.
Negative Modifier: - relations when you decline a joint declaration of war or don't DoW a weak neighbour after a warning.

Hammurabi's agenda should be An Eye For An Eye: he treats everyone equal, or worse, to how they treat him

 

[Morningcalm]

I don't know--those suggestions still show Cyrus as approving of betraying people. But certainly a more sophisticated system of various positive and negative modifiers would make more sense than the largely black-and-white agenda system currently at play in Civ VI. XD

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Honestly changing the name of "Opportunist" to something like "King of Kings" makes a whole lot of difference in my opinion. Instead of backstabbing he just quickly wants to rule over everybody and let everybody be happy without having to completely redo everything.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I don't know--those suggestions still show Cyrus as approving of betraying people. But certainly a more sophisticated system of various positive and negative modifiers would make more sense than the largely black-and-white agenda system currently at play in Civ VI. XD

The irony of the agenda system is that, while specifically designed to add flavour to the game, it lacks so much nuance that the flavour it does add is of the "everyone is an unreasonable freakin' psychopath" variety. It is one-dimensional, repetitive and annoying to play against. (I will not touch upon giving questionable (lazy) agenda's to certain leaders, such as Pedro, Cleo and Wilhelmina, in depth within this post but it's worth mentioning)

Slightly OT, but MoO had an amazing AI personality system: There were seven specific personalities and winning strategies and AIs had one default personality and strategy (60% chance to get it) and 2 alternative personalities and strategies (20% chance each), they could roll at the start of the game. It provided a surprising amount of depth and diplomacy would often play out similar to how a human player would do it. Like, the AI would propose counter deals, offer bribes ("would you attack the psilons for us? how about we throw in a terraforming tech and 500 BC?"), enforce alliances, punish espionage, etc. and this game was released in 1993! I wish the Civ 6 Diplomacy were more like that. It absolutely needs to be deepened even more. (among other things)

Back to topic, Cyrus could be given a personality which favours more ruthless gameplay (higher backstab modifier, higher surprise war chances, higher chances to bribe other AIs into war), but also has the nuance to - you know- have it not be the ONLY thing he cares about (ie: make him more inclined to go after weaker civs, for instance or respect stronger civs more). He would openly Surprise Invade weaker opponents, while resort to subterfuge against stronger civs. (this would be a great personality to give to Aunt Cathy as well)

 

[Weraptor]

Likes civilizations with a wide array of governors. Dislikes civilizations with few specialized governors.
We wuz satraps...