Is anyone else concerned about there being only one leader per civ?

[kamex]

I think thats the trend in Civ games before Civ 4, I don't really know, having only played Civ 4 myself, but I liked being able to choose between multiple leaders for a single Civ. I'm not sure how I'll react to Civ 5 if thre is only one leader per civ...

 

[Suho1004]

I believe I tilted my head slightly when I first read that there would be only one leader per civ, but that was about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that having fewer leaders would allow for more differentiation between leaders. In my mind, this is a good thing.

 

[eleazzaar]

not concerned.

More leaders might be nice, but not something i need.

Though hopefully they haven't made their new leaders so fancy that it's too hard to make new ones for historical scenarios etc.

 

[Ahriman]

One leader per civ, and only 18 civs, allows them to actually make each faction unique, and have its own playstyle. The "sameness" of civs has always been one of this game's biggest weaknesses.

So I think its great.

 

[Chalks]

Hopefully the flavours system should allow you to have very diverse opponents even if there are only 18 visually different leaders.

I don't think it will detract from the game much at all.

 

[mjs0]

I believe I tilted my head slightly when I first read that there would be only one leader per civ, but that was about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that having fewer leaders would allow for more differentiation between leaders. In my mind, this is a good thing.

One of the things I always really liked about SMAC was the clear differentiation between the factions and the personalities of their leaders, and the correspondingly different gameplay that each of them provided.
I think one leader per civ is a step in that direction for Civ, and I couldn't be happier.

 

[duckstab]

I have no doubt that additional civs will become available with mods and expansion packs, which means there will be more leaders. Hopefully they'll also allow for something along the lines of unrestricted leaders and random personalities.

Of course, that was relatively easy to accomplish in Civ4 because, unless I'm mistaken, all the AIs are running the same code, but each leader was just parameterized differently. At the very least, Civ5 differs in that there will be some variation in the parameters used for a given leader: in one game Napoleon might be very aggressive, in another significantly less so. I wonder, however, if they've even gone beyond that and added some custom behavioral code for each leader.

 

[Ahriman]

Hopefully the flavours system should allow you to have very diverse opponents even if there are only 18 visually different leaders.

Flavors are just AI preferences. They have nothing to do with actual gameplay bonuses. So they lead to different behavior across AIs, but they have no impact on the human playing that faction.

The most important thing about differentiation is not making the AI's make different decisions from each other, it is making the different factions play differently in the hands of the human player. I want playing England to give me as a human more of an incentive to try to build up a navy and a farflung empire, not just to see an AI Elizabeth more likely to adopt that strategy.

 

[bonafide11]

One leader per civ, and only 18 civs, allows them to actually make each faction unique, and have its own playstyle. The "sameness" of civs has always been one of this game's biggest weaknesses.

So I think its great.

Exactly. I can't believe people are actually upset about this. I don't see any reason to have more than one leader per Civ really. It doesn't add much to the game. I'd rather have more unique civilizations than extra leaders.

 

[Willem]

Hopefully the flavours system should allow you to have very diverse opponents even if there are only 18 visually different leaders.

With this system, you don't really need to have seperate leaders. That was only to make, say, the Russian civilization slightly different each time you played the game. But flavours are going to do that anyway so there's no need to have more but 1 leader. The same leader is going to be slightly different every time you play a game.

 

[deanej]

Even if they play slightly differently, it still gets boring to play the same leader over and over. Plus now you can't model how a civ behaves differently under different leaders.

 

[Ahriman]

Plus now you can't model how a civ behaves differently under different leaders.

Why would we want to? We don't want multiple personality disorder AIs who keep changing their personality every few turns because of a change in government.

We want a particular AI player to behave consistently through an entire game. They might play differently next game, but that's different. If they don't behave consistently, then any diplomacy is doomed.

So in terms of "playing the same leader over and over" all you're really complaining in practice is seeing the same picture for them from one game to the next. Which honestly I really don't care about at all.

 

[awesome]

i don't really have a reason, but it doesn't bother me all that much.

 

[Rusty Edge]

Ideally, there would be some flavor to each civ in addition to a UU or UB, that might come in an aptitude to acquire or discover a particular tech, or a herding civ like the mongols getting a bonus (extra hammer?) from special resources of that type, while the seafearing vikings would get more from sea resources and the agrarian egyptians get more from crops. It should feel a little bit different to play as or against each each civ, independent of leader traits, which would still include a favorite civic.

Ideally, with expansions, each civ would have two leaders to choose from, even if both Chinese leaders were isolationists, both Spanish leaders were religious zealots, and both Americans were expansionists, etc.

 

[Willem]

Ideally, with expansions, each civ would have two leaders to choose from, even if both Chinese leaders were isolationists, both Spanish leaders were religious zealots, and both Americans were expansionists, etc.

You mean male and female? That would be a good idea.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'd rather they spend their time including more civilizations than building more and more leaderheads for ones that are already represented.

 

[Chalks]

Flavors are just AI preferences. They have nothing to do with actual gameplay bonuses. So they lead to different behavior across AIs, but they have no impact on the human playing that faction.

Sorry, yes, this is exactly what I meant. Not strictly in reply to the OP, but I see the main potential drawback from one leader per civ being the lack of AI variety (due to their bonuses) rather than the human players having less options with who to play as.

However, due to the flavours system, the AI variety is actually going to be greatly improved.

Do we know whether you're going to have gameplay bonus fixed to leaders as in previous versions, or are you going to be able to choose your bonuses for the human player? That would seem to be ideal, to completely detach it from leader selection.

 

[Eddogegr3]

I'd rather they spend their time including more civilizations than building more and more leaderheads for ones that are already represented.

I agree with this and when the first expansion is released we will get it most likely.

Although, I do enjoy two leaders for one Civ. You know that Asoka behaved differently than Gandhi. Kublai and Genghis acted differently.

 

[Rusty Edge]

You mean male and female? That would be a good idea.

Sometimes. I don't want bad leaders just for the sake of including women.

I can't think of any women that could play the part of leader for America.
I'm happy with Washington and Lincoln as choices.

 

[Krzowwh]

With more than one leader per civ, you would feel more like playing the civilization rather than just one leader.