Multiple Rulers per Civ

[BigBirdZ28]

Anyone ever played the game Tropico? You could pick your ruler or create a ruler with a set of bonuses/maluses. It was simple things, like requiring more maintenance on certain structures or making some workers more effective and so forth.

Tropico is a cool game, i like bringing that idea to civ !

 

[mitsho]

@Trip I said these ratios shouldn't be absolute, but in the end, it should come to that regarding all civs (meaning, there will exist civs with 3 males, and ones with 2 females and one male leader),

Why the leaders shouldn't be made up: Because it's a history game and perhaps, some teenager who plays this game will really think that Sheherazade once ruled Persia. And it takes away a bit of the athmosphere, me thinks.

So, in the end, there's just nothing negative about this idea...

mfG mitsho

 

[dh_epic]

Pardon me for the historical exaggeration. But Rome's history doesn't exactly flow neatly into Italy's history. I don't mind a little bit of "convenience" in how history is told through Civ.

I think the ratio is unimportant. Find a good female leader if possible, but otherwise default to male. But I think the thought is important -- multiple leaders per Civ, with different combinations of traits.

 

[Teabeard]

Bah... no ratios.

Pick 2 leaders, male or female. I don't want to see Susan B. Anthony as a US "leader."

How is she any less realistic as a leader than Joan of Arc?

 

[Jon Shafer]

How is she any less realistic as a leader than Joan of Arc?

They're both unrealistic and don't belong.

 

[Teabeard]

They're both unrealistic and don't belong.

Civ isn't about realism. It's a game and is meant to be fun. I for one like Joan of Arc being a ruler and would like it if Susan B. Anthony and many other females were rulers as well.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Why not use Babe Ruth as the American leader then? Or Hitler? After all, Civ doesn't care about realism.

 

[Teabeard]

Obviously preference should be given to actual leaders, but in order to come up with female rulers it may sometimes be necessary to use non-rulers who were influential in some way for that Civ. If you don't like Susan B. Anthony, fine, how about Eleanor Roosevelt? Eleanor Roosevelt, I believe, was the female ruler for America in CIV 2.

It's ridiculous that Civ 3 should be missing some of the fun things from Civ 2. I hope Civ 4 brings these things back... having multiple rulers makes the game more fun, especially if different rulers have differing traits. George Washington may bring militiaristic as a trait for America, whereas Thomas Jefferson might bring Commercial, and so on. Yes, it is alot of work to do the leaderheads so maybe there should just be two rulers per civ (one male and one female, just as in Civ 2) however the option should exist for players to customize their games by adding more rulers to choose from for their civ.

 

[dh_epic]

I think reasonable people will understand what Teabeard is saying. Realism isn't unimportant, it just needs to be balanced with fun. You shouldn't always go along trying to extend lines of thinking where they can't reasonably go. Reminds me of needy ex-girlfriends.

"Let's stay in."
"Oh so you want to stay in every single day now?"
"Nah, I'm just tired."
"Well if you're so tired of me why don't we just break up?"
"Whoa. Why are you acting this way?"
"Oh so I'm a horrible person now?"

Eesh.

For what it's worth, Ghandi was never a leader in the way that Abraham Lincoln and Hitler were leaders of their nations. He helped motivate people to win their independence, while others actually ruled the country. He's more like a Martin Luther King or a Joan of Arc than a Lincoln. And I wouldn't go so far as to say that Ghandi is unrealistic.

 

[Jon Shafer]

The leaders were based on both PC and recognizability reasons. Does anyone really think Joan of Arc is more deserving of the title of leader of France than Louis XIV or Napoleon or Richelieu?

 

[Teabeard]

I agree, dh_epic. As I said we are talking about leaders of civilizations, not leaders of nations. I don't recall hearing too many complaints about Joan of Arc being the leader of the French, she is well admired and was very important for the history of France, as was Ghandi.

Now, all I am proposing is that in addition to the leaders we have now there also be included at least one more. So in addition to Joan you could also play Napoleon, or whatever.

 

[Teabeard]

The leaders were based on both PC and recognizability reasons. Does anyone really think Joan of Arc is more deserving of the title of leader of France than Louis XIV or Napoleon or Richelieu?

Well, with multiple rulers as I am proposing you can have it both ways. You can have Napoleon and Joan and Louis and anyone else you can get the leader graphics for... What's not to like about being able to choose from several rulers for your civ?

Edit: as for PC, why did they include Mao? He is one of, if not the, greatest mass murderers of the 20th century.

 

[Jon Shafer]

Leader graphics are the problem, as I think I've illustrated in another thread.

There was a poll here on CFC about which leaders people wanted for France. It was roughly even between Louis XIV and Napoleon for top honors, Charles the Great and Richelieu were further behind and Joan of Arc got about 3% of the vote. There's a problem when you include someone who gets 3% of the vote when there are so many other proper leaders who are more deserving, no matter HOW many slots you have for leaders.

As far as Mao not being PC, perhaps. But the's not as well known to the West as someone like Hitler, and for that reason alone he's more PC. Us westernerers tend to only care about things that affect us, we're funny like that...

 

[dh_epic]

I hardly think an informal poll on a forums is going to tell you how popular something is.

But regardless, this, to me, only seems to support the idea of multiple rulers per civ. Why not have Louis XIV and Napoleon and Joan of Arc? I think with minimal resources it could be pulled off.

 

[Jon Shafer]

More leaders = fewer civs.

Which do you prefer?

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Why should more leaders lead to fewer civs? For most of the players they could abandon the leaderhead graphics. They should go back to simple portraits, this way it is less work to implement new leaders and for the community to create new ones.

They also could give us a big set of portraits (like in RPGs) which we can choose when we want to play with an own civ and an own leader. Imo, they should make the civs more customisable (inside the starting screen).Take the traits you want, name the civ as you want, choose a fancy leaderhead and give the leader a name. UUs would be a problem, though.

And, not sure who wrote that, Maria Theresia was AUSTRIAN, not german. She was emperess at the time of Friedrich der Grosse and also went to war with him. To Firaxis: please dont give the germans austrian cities (Salzburg for instance), there was only one short period when we were unified with our neighbours...from 1938-1945.

 

[Teabeard]

More leaders = fewer civs.

Which do you prefer?

Why do you say that?

If it came down to it I'd rather have fewer Civs if it meant more leaders. Sumerians and Hittites don't mean anything to me and I don't care if they are dropped if it means multiple rulers for France, America, Germany, etc.

 

[Bartleby]

I don't think the leader is so important. Last time I played the Americans my leader was called Charlton Heston. He bore a passing resemblance to Abe Lincoln, but so what?

 

[dh_epic]

I would easily embrace more leaders OR more Civs. It's one of those things that are just plain *more* without interfering with the actual gameplay -- micromanagement would stay the same and so would the learning curve.

I wouldn't mind a portrait system at all. Especially considering you can do some great 2D art with no need to do any serious rendering or animation.

 

[Teabeard]

2D portraits are fine, but they should have expressions to indicate mood.