More on Leaders

[zeeter]

On GL's

I've been thinking a lot about Great Leaders lately. Many people have complained about GL's and their usefulness in Civ3.

Here's my idea: We get GL's as normal from an Elite victory. These GL's themselves have skills when creating an army - such as a plus one to attack, plus one to defend, plus one to movement, plus one to bombard, etc...

Any unit added to that army gains the advantage that the GL possesses.

Lets take this further. Say the GL's start out only with the ability to group units. If that GL's army attacks another army there is a chance that the advantage will increase. That is, If Red Army A attacks Blue Army B and Army A wins, there is a chance that Army A will gain a Plus One in all future attacks. Furthermore, if Army B wins, then there is a chance that Army B will gain a plus one in all future defenses.

Benefits: Obviously the enhancement to units is a benefit. Furthermore, the armies will have personalities. Imagine as the Russians seeing newsflashes popping up every few turns telling of the Roman General Hadrian's army winning another battle against the Americans. Or a news flash that Hadrian has just been defeated by Patton near Veii. This is great storytelling!

Furthermore, I like the idea that units may be added/removed from Armies. I've thought and thought about this. Would many of the people who complain that GL's should only be used for Wonders say the same if they could load/unload?

Also, while armies may be built in cities later in the game, they should not get the same benefits as the GL's army.

 

[Portuguese]

Very good ideas, but I would let GLs to be few, not " We get GL's as normal from an Elite victory".

That would make them normal, and that is not the idea.

 

[BCLG100]

i like the ideas about the armies having less somthing than the GL armies but also an idea is that you could be able to build people like leaders that automatically finish like half the wonder rather than the whole wonder like a GL does

 

[Allemand]

How about letting the GL increase the performance of units within a certain radius?

 

[zeeter]

Hey Allemand, any relation to the Allemans in Central Pennsylvania?

 

[Gastric ReFlux]

I would like to see GLs that could occur from peaceful building endeavors.

Sadly enough, GLs have turned me into something of a warmonger. A well-planned and executed series of wars can turn into a sort of GL factory that can build wonders and infrastructure.

 

[zeeter]

Gastric: Good Idea. Maybe the first person to circumnavigate the map. When the ship hits port again, a leader is produced there. If you have, say, fifteen cities, the worker who finishes the last road to connect all of the cities together is a leader. Same for Railroads, but with twenty cities. The worker who completes the road to the Aztecs which allows for the trade of iron so that you can finally create swordsman can be a leader. When Veii is starving, the worker who irrigates the field to save the people can be a leader. There's probably a lot of ways that this can happen.

 

[GI Josh]

. . . *excellent* idea. this would extend some depth to strategy - some armies move faster, some defend better, etc. would allow them to be used differently. now, armies would have some *real* utility. embassies/spies should reveal the attributes of the armies. it would make interesting battles, army v. army. and the idea of the game keeping track of the battles of the named armies is also a great idea.

your idea also ties in well with other ideas from other threads about adding strategic depth to the game by varying the effects of terrain, e.g. mech units (tanks, MI) can only traverse mountains/jungles on roads, mech units suffer attack/defense penalties on mountains/jungles/forest, etc.

The whole thrust of changes to Civ3 should not be to add layers of overly complex rules, additional units, etc. By making simple changes to the already existing scheme, you can add real strategic depth to the game without adding to turn length issues, clickability issues, etc.

Again, zeeter, *outstanding* idea.

 

[kring]

Sounds good. After all, there are other GL's that weren't military, but all branches of the civ characteristics.

 

[zeeter]

Heres another one about the peaceful leaders concept. Lets say that you get a leader from one of my prescribed methods. That leader shouldn't be able to create an army, as he was created by peaceful methods. However, he should be able to go to a city and increase that city's production.
Say my city produces 20 shields per turn. When the worker GL is sentried in that city, the shield production goes up to 30. And that ten extra is not corruptable. The first twenty is, but not the last ten.
This would force the elimination of the GL's ability to rush an improvement in one turn. It would separate war GL's from peace GL's. It makes more sense to me that a leader produced from battle would become a General, not go off to build Shakespear's Theatre or something.

 

[zeeter]

Sorry, I wasn't quite done with my last post.

The idea of separating war GL's from peace GL's opens a lot of doors. A problem with the current method is that if someone has too many GL's nobody will build armies, they will build wonders. All of the GW's will be produced by GL's instead of taking the time to make the GW truly important.

Segregating the use of GL's allows for an increase in their production. Since they cannot be used to rush improvements they may occur more frequently thus allowing army vs army situations to happen more regularly. Personally, I have never had an army vs army battle.

Furthermore, if the Peace GL is set inside a city and assists in the production of a GW, then there can be a chance that that GL's skills rise. Lets say he assists in the building of the Sistine Chapel. Quite possibly his happiness rating will increase. That is, his presence alone in a city will make one citizen happy. If he assists in building Smith's Trade Co. or the Collossus, there is a chance that his luxeries rating will increase so as to add, say, fifteen luxuries to the city.

We can probably think of many more attributes that a peaceful leader can achieve. We can also get into methods of capturing leaders.