Leader Switching

[GeneralZift]

Ditch the Civ Switch and try a Leader switch.
How does it work?
We cannot limit Leaders by Civ choice otherwise some Civs will run out of leaders very quickly.
We can't have Leaders die of age because then we would run out of leaders, and particularly notable leaders.

So what have I ended up with?
Essentially the game plays like normal, except your leader gains experience and can unlock policies which are unique to them, based on the real life policies that they supported.
Once you reach a particular point, you get the option to succeed the Leader you have with another Leader who is more appropriate for the time era, but can be of any nationality.

If you chose Yes, your leader gets replaced by someone with no experience but they're better set up for the new Era.
If you chose No, you get to keep your Leader and the policies you have already. This allows you to take your original Civ and Leader to the end of the game.

Here's the spicy part:
During the game, your Leader can die, which can force a Leader switch, and thereby forcibly remove the experience you have on the Leader. How do they die?

Spies can initiate Assassination attempts. You may have to relocate your Leader outside of the Capital. Your leader may have to be protected by various unique structures, units and policies.

When you conquer a capital, you get the option between sparing and killing the leader. Sparing the leader may have them change their tune towards being your friend. Killing them might bring forward a more resentful successor.

Now for the failsafe:
If there are no available leaders for you to switch into, the game instead automatically elects your Civilisation to be led by a Council.
This is essentially a Leader with no face and subpar policies.
If you lead Democracy, it'll be a democratic council, if you lead Authoritarian, it'll be like an Oligarchical council, you get the gist.

But why?
The point of switching the Leader, but not strictly always switching the Leader, is that it adds more dynamics to the gameplay loop. You're not always playing against the same people start to finish. But you're not always replacing them, so there is some sort of player relationships building between player and AI.

There's a strategic decision between keeping and losing leaders. There's decisions to make about whether to play nice or assassinate leaders. You can try to install leaders in the hope that they work with your agenda, or you can end up brewing an even worse enemy.

You may play a game where your leader isn't so important and you don't worry about boosting their skills and end up changing leaders more often.
Or you may play a game where your leader is an immortal god whose ancient traditions carry you into the modern age.

 

[mitsho]

Yeah, that's how I had set it up in my imagined next civ game as well.

I had them tied to civilizations with the additional benefit of distinguishing "big" civs like Rome (a few leaders/flexibility in strategy) from smaller civs like Mapuche (one leader, one playstyle).

This way, they also weren't "era-appropriate", meaning the civ7 era partition wouldn't work. And they were still tied to the civ, but that would work well with the unmatching the leaders from the civ like civ7 does.

So it makes more sense in achieving the gameplay effect the developers sought, namely changing up the power-balance during the game. If you're losing, better switch to a warlord persona.

But what it doesn't address is the fear of the developers that the player associates the other players in the game by their leader. I'm not convinced of that by the way, colour and civ could work. But that's the reason they didn't go this route. I'm guessing it would have saved them a shitstorm though.

 

[GeneralZift]

Yeah, that's how I had set it up in my imagined next civ game as well.

I had them tied to civilizations with the additional benefit of distinguishing "big" civs like Rome (a few leaders/flexibility in strategy) from smaller civs like Mapuche (one leader, one playstyle).

This way, they also weren't "era-appropriate", meaning the civ7 era partition wouldn't work. And they were still tied to the civ, but that would work well with the unmatching the leaders from the civ like civ7 does.

So it makes more sense in achieving the gameplay effect the developers sought, namely changing up the power-balance during the game. If you're losing, better switch to a warlord persona.

But what it doesn't address is the fear of the developers that the player associates the other players in the game by their leader. I'm not convinced of that by the way, colour and civ could work. But that's the reason they didn't go this route. I'm guessing it would have saved them a shitstorm though.

Well unfortunately they got a **** storm either way :/

I reckon it's easier for players to digest leaders switching than Civs switching.
People can succeed others in real life in leadership all the time.
However the entire culture changing in a moment is harder to digest.

Also like you said, if you keep the throne room, colours, icons and so on the same, and simply switch out the Physical Leader, you'd mitigate those issues about who you're playing against.