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Leader Switching

GeneralZIft

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Feb 25, 2019
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I had an idea the other day that I was floating. I wondered what if instead of the Civ switch mechanic they had actually come up with a Leader switch mechanic?

So, similar to how Great People used to be born into any Civilisation despite their real historic background, this would be the same thing but with the Leader you play as, at the end of each era.

That way, you don't change your city names or your empire or anything like that, but you change from an Antiquity Leader (with Antiquity related bonuses) to a Exploration Leader (with Exploration related bonuses).
These bonuses would then be tied to what that leader got up to in their lifetime.

So then, you can lead Romans with your Roman leader, switch him out for an Exploration leader and by the end you can have your Modern Romans lead by uhh... Churchill?

I was thinking this way, it's not quite the same level of alienating as the proposal they went with. Although perhaps seeing a different leader in the diplomacy screen is probably quite weird on second thoughts

Does it make much difference if it's done this way? Why or why not? What's your opinion?
 
There’s gonna be a bit of a mechanical difference, one of the reasons Firaxis used civ switching is so that each civ doesn’t have a period where they don’t gain much benefits (like Sumer in late game or Sweden in the early game for civ 6). While leaders can be changed from more general benefits to age specfic ones, it’ll be harder to come up with thematic benefits for civs that only existed in specifc timelines.

Art wise, I also think it might take a lot more work. Sure, each civ has a lot more assets to create like units, buildings, and music, but a leader has to have their own model, animation sets, and voice acting to feel different enough.
 
Changing leaders is very bad from an immersion standpoint IMO. The leader is the face of the civilization; you can't form a relationship with a faceless civilization--and a civilization whose "face" changes might as well be faceless. This was part of Humankind's (many, many) problems: the leaders weren't memorable or distinctive and changed their appearance when their civ changed, making it difficult to keep tabs of relationships (or form them in the first place beyond treaties and wars). I'd find this considerably more alienating than civ-swapping, which I found off-putting initially but have grown to tolerate as it opens the door for some interesting inclusions like the Mississippians who would be difficult or unlikely in the traditional Civ model.
 
I consider the Civ-switching is fairly reasonable than the Leader-switching.

The Civilizations based on Countries, Nations, States can lie over the historical periods lasting for centuries, while the Leaders based on actual persons can only last for decades. So if we want to simulate the long live nation and term-serving leader, we met the problem that the Leaders changed so often. We have to narrow the period that the game deal with - like EU or HOI franchise in this case.

In Civ 7, the Leaders now represent both of historical persons and the identity groups of people. Hatsepsut is of coursely the "Hatshepsut" we know, but she is also the representative of Egyptian people. In this case, the Leaders can stand the whole game playthrough, switching their Civs through the Ages.

And finally, human brain is good at recognizing and distinguishing people more than any other objects. When you enter the diplomatic screen, you'll met the rival Leaders. Seeing the face of Leader is much easier than reading the name tag of Civ.
 
I'd find this considerably more alienating than civ-swapping, which I found off-putting initially but have grown to tolerate as it opens the door for some interesting inclusions like the Mississippians who would be difficult or unlikely in the traditional Civ model.
What I specifically like is that long lasting in game civilizations like China, India, Japan, Norse, amongst others can be broken up into specific eras and not have one catch-all representation.
 
One dev diary suggests that they did try this... I guess it probably varies from person to person whether they identify with a civ or a leader when looking at a Civ and Firaxis likely gathered data on which way round made things the mpst confusing...
 
That way, you don't change your city names or your empire or anything like that, but you change from an Antiquity Leader (with Antiquity related bonuses) to a Exploration Leader (with Exploration related bonuses).
How many abilities are you thinking about? It seems like it might be difficult to come up with many bonus for say, Hapshepsut because we have limited information on her, but we have a lot in total on ancient Egypt.
 
Leader switching can work (there are other games like Crusader Kings that use it), but it would require a completely different design than what they're doing with Civ7.

Leaders in Civ7 only have a few distinct special abilities but accumulate traits over time. That would be pointless in a leader-switching environment.

The play value of civ-switching is to have unique units and buildings for each Age; to match that, you'd need to give leaders the same, in which case they're leaders in name only... really, they'd be civilizations.
 
Leader switching doesn't really work with most civs... ignore how r/Civ would react if they saw Gilgamesh replaced: who would replace Gilgamesh? Your Roman leader turning into an Italian/Byzantine leader and then into an Italian leader is... fine-ish, but every modern nation or nation that no longer exists is a big question mark. Ideas like "Iraq is modern Babylon" now have to be put in place everywhere, and modern and ancient civs become pretty much mutually exclusive. What's the distinction between two civs from different time periods worth if they both end up having leaders who led the same nation for the whole game? And of course there's the issue of Native American civs or other civs with less documentation of leaders. Needless to say, Mississipians are out of the question unless we turn the civ into an actual blob of a bunch of Native American tribes that lived on the Mississipi in different periods of time. What about the United States? Who is the "Antiquity" leader of the US? Is it Pericles or someone else who contributed to parts of antiquity that the nation took inspiration from? That's odd, and immediately runs into the modern/ancient overlap issue. If you go for the geographical route, then you either have the United States led by Tecumseh, or your Native American leader is replaced by Andrew Jackson on the Age turnover, which is much MUCH worse than what we have currently.
 
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I posted something like this before, but it bears repeating every time somebody brings up the idea of Leader switching in Civ.

One of the few things that are built in to humans from Birth is the recognition of a human face. Babies, literally as soon as their eyes can focus on any thing, can focus and recognize a Human Face. Even a stylized human face, like the Walmart smiley face, will attract a baby's attention before anything else.

Which is the basis for the Immortal Leader in Civ: humans will instantly recognize the Leader/Human face before they can take in the details of a flag, emblem, map, or virtually any other graphic element. It's built in.

Swapping Leaders/faces in the game breaks down that instantaneous recognition link, and no matter how distinctive you think the Civilization design is, it will not be, and can never be, as recognizable as a Human Face - even the animated ones Civ VII and previous Civs have shown us.

Think of them as Spirits of the Civ if you like, but those faces are the best possible recognition graphic for what you are playing, no matter what Civilization you are playing.
 
Leader switching can work (there are other games like Crusader Kings that use it)
I'd argue that's not the same thing. CK3 is a roleplaying game with management sim and strategy elements--at least that's how I approach it. Old World is closer, but OW's focus is much narrower in scope than Civ's.
 
That qas my design proposal yes. Though I would have kept it inside a civilization. Big ones like Rone get multiple leaders and thus more flexibility, small ones have to stay with its single leader. There are some that overlap. It's mostly a gameplay-related idea.

They chose to go the other way and change the civs which is fine as well, but I'm glad they recognized that what civ needs is Dynamism. Next thing to become dynamic should be the map...
 
To add here Firaxis own argumentation on this from the second Dev Diary:

Why mix and match?

One of the more notable features in Civilization VII is the ability to mix and match leaders and civs. I mentioned a bit about the rationale above, but wanted to expand a bit more on our thought process.

A major reason for adding mix and match was to support Ages. In past games, you always played as the same leader and civ combo through the entire game. With your empire being represented by multiple different civs across a full campaign in Civilization VII, we needed to make sure that players still had a strong cohesive sense of "who" they're playing as, and against.

With Ages, we thought about several different approaches on how we could handle civs and leaders. This included the idea of switching leaders per Age, as well as designing in "stacks" where every Civ would be like what we have for India (Maurya, to Chola, to Mughal).

Each of these options fell short in different ways. We were convinced that swapping leaders would be particularly confusing to understand who you were playing with. Players often say that they're making alliances or waging war against Cleopatra, Gandhi, or Montezuma - not Egypt, India, or the Aztecs. And if the leader changes mid-game, that narrative inside the player's head is disrupted.


In a similar vein, only choosing civilizations that have a full "stack," as in a direct historical lineage, meant that we would have to be greatly limited in who we could consider for Civilization VII. You would only be able to pick civs whose past spans the entirety of history, which means no America.

That brings us back to "why mix and match" - and in some sense, why Ages? Through this feature, we're able to make sure you maintain a strong sense of identity for your empire, your friends, and your rivals on the world stage. Creating historical "pathways" instead of a strict empire stack provides significantly more replayability and allows us to represent a more diverse set of cultures. We're able to expand leaders into new categories, shining a spotlight on figures who contributed to humanity in ways many players may be discovering for the first time. And, of course, strategy! Every leader has a unique playstyle, and you'll be able to blend that playstyle with the unique traits of each civilization during the Age.
 
Changing leaders is very bad from an immersion standpoint IMO. The leader is the face of the civilization; you can't form a relationship with a faceless civilization--and a civilization whose "face" changes might as well be faceless. This was part of Humankind's (many, many) problems: the leaders weren't memorable or distinctive and changed their appearance when their civ changed, making it difficult to keep tabs of relationships (or form them in the first place beyond treaties and wars). I'd find this considerably more alienating than civ-swapping, which I found off-putting initially but have grown to tolerate as it opens the door for some interesting inclusions like the Mississippians who would be difficult or unlikely in the traditional Civ model.
It depends. Immersion in Civilization has two faces IMO.
1. Who are you playing with
2. Who are you playing against
A mother of all problems is that we look only from one perspective at once.

If you play against a Civ, I fully agree. Just like the devs said you play against a person, not an abstract fraction. That's why building a game on leaders seems logical but...
If you play with a civ, you are always playing as a leader of the Civilization. You are a leader. From this point of view, this decision looks much more controversial.

From my subjective perspective when I play a game with Khmer - Normans - Mexico. My immersion is ruined.
On the other hand, if you design a game this way, you must give us this option.
 
Why, may I ask? That's an interesting example because Normans were a civ ruled by vikings who were invited in to keep the other vikings out and Mexico is a former colony.
First of all, this isa subjective feeling :)
If I have to rationalize it somehow: because Khmer and Normans have no connection, and Normans and Mexico are a little bit far-fetched for me (timeline, Normans were not a colonial power and haven't any settlements in modern-day Mexico). It's just a random combination from the top of my mind.
 
If you manage to play a game Khmer-Norman-Mexico, it's because you went (far) out of your way to unlock civilizations that normally don't unlock each other. At that point, you have only yourself to blame for any lossof immersion. Play silly games, win silly prizes.
 
If you manage to play a game Khmer-Norman-Mexico, it's because you went (far) out of your way to unlock civilizations that normally don't unlock each other. At that point, you have only yourself to blame for any lossof immersion. Play silly games, win silly prizes.

Well, let's see: Justification Time.

The Khmer took to the sea, landed in northern France, became Khmermans. Khmermandy, following in the footsteps of historical France, invades the area of Mexico (look it up: 1861 to 1867, the Maximilian Fiasco) and becomes Imperial Mexico.

Anything can be made acceptable, no matter how hard you have to warp Reality to believe it.

That's the lesson of modern politics , anyway . . .
 
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