My personal leader wishlist. (Government Civics)

[VexTheSane]

Personally, I wish they'd jettison the leader / great people / golden age systems as they stand and make it based upon your playstyle. Namely by your civic choices, which frankly evolve from game to game based on your environment.

I'd rather see them somewhat meshed, creating a whole dynasty of leaders that affect your civilization augmenting (or intentionally repressing) the will of its people.

The end result would be leaders with finite life spans (similar to the current golden age system) who provide traits or bonuses while alive. (meshing the existing leader traits and great people.) Traditional great people could still be implemented and may in fact spawn faster depending on what direction the leader and civics are steering things.

Let's start with Despotism.
Despotism is at its core, tyrannical leadership. At best you get an enlightened despot. At worst, a depraved madman.

Despots get what they want domestically. There would be no opposition to anything they do (so would have no direct penalty towards anything like production, research, or commerce) but would indirectly suffer the results of increased unhappiness from their minions and gain no bonus towards any specific research path.

Despotic leaders would (under the current system) most resemble the great general from a great person standpoint, and a straightforward warmonger leader such as Monty or Genghis.

Hereditary Rule would feature heirs that have somewhat randomized strengths and weaknesses. For instance, some would be more economically savvy, others would be tactically minded. The determining factor for the heir's area of proficiency is determined on the needs of the kingdom when they spawn. They are groomed from birth to rule, so their education is most heavily focused on the immediate threats or goals at the outset.

A king born during an economic boom might yield you someone like Van Orange, while a war that is going badly might result in the birth of Boudica.

They enjoy similar freedom to city development that despots have, minus the unhappiness in proximity of the capital. The further away from his/her majesty the people are, the less impressed they are. Whereas the subjects of a despot never assume they're too far to get assassinated if they make too much noise.

 

[VexTheSane]

Representation is where it starts getting tricky. Representation likely features sizeable bonuses to all fields, but is limited in actually giving the people a voice.

The types of leaders that are born to Representation are literally embodiments of what the majority of you citizens feel they need. An unhealthy civ is likely going to push for researching solutions. Unhappy ones will demand culture. Broke ones will demand merchants. And ones being invaded will demand protection.

In addition to a life expectancy, representatives are subject to being tossed out of the job and replaced, if used in a manner the people don't approve of.

Just finished a great war with US Grant and earned sizeable military bonuses? Great! Still trying to play conquerer while your economy is going down the tubes? Too bad, they'll get rid of him and replace him with a financial expert.

The police state, by contrast gains enormous espionage bonuses and defense bonuses at the expense of slowed innovation and commerce. The people are constantly going through checkpoints, observing curfews, and the like; essentially shutting your country down at night. (Or by day, if you fancy playing as a night owl or vampire.)

The police state tends to suffer negative relations from other leaders, both because they are hard to invade, and are profoundly good at stealing from other civs. Which is good, because productivity, research, and commerce are rather slow.

Universal sufferage operates similarly to representation, but its productivity is heavily influenced by the happiness of its people. The happier they are, the more they are willing to give back. When unhappy, they will flat out shut down your government. They are also somewhat fickle, frequently assigning leaders based on their own entertainment value and charisma rather than actual skills they may possess.

This tends to create an almost random focus on tech development based on what yields the most wealth and happiness. Which means that Universal sufferage has the fastest accruing war weariness and the highest likelihood of devolving into chaos when things go bad.

Anarchy lasts twice as long under sufferage. To somewhat counter the erratic nature of the civic, sufferage would likely generate the largest bonuses, as long as you can keep the people happy.

 

[VexTheSane]

Rather than have your leader constantly replaced (as not all or many world leaders are particularly noteworthy in the grand scheme of things), perhaps it could be done similarly to the great person / golden age system.

"A great leader is born." During the great leader's life expectancy (even if it isn't your civ) turns are reduced in length, allowing for a great leader to drastically change the world around them. For better or for worse.

For game purposes, playing as several mediocre mongolian leaders would become a lot more fun the second you received the message that an unknown by the name of Timujin has just taken on the mantle of Genghis Khan. And then you are given about 40 years of slowed down time to put him to work and inspire terror among your neighbors.

Or imagine the dread of getting the message:
"Julius Caesar has dissolved the Roman Senate and assumed power." (Time to get those walls built up, I'm guessing)

 

[VexTheSane]

Perhaps it could simply be a matter of assigning a popped great person to become your leader. The identity could be determined by A) your choice of civics B) the role you assign them to.

You could just get the message a great person is born, and have the option of making them a leader or using them as normal (if you already have a leader you like, for instance).

So you could have several warrior kings, and merchant costers, alongside a world of sneaky tricksters, zealots, and art buffs determined to leave a cultural mark that exceeds the life of their own empire.

 

[Hail]

your idea again brings up my point of events and/or traits pushing you some path (or making one strategy much move beneficial then the rest). sure you do not have to take it, but you will have to overcome the penalties or the absence of a bonus.

i like the "evolving traits from playing style" idea more. you choose your path, not some random event.

this idea ties with the notion, that environment should influence the evolution of your civ. for example a civ with a lot of coastal cities should receive a bonus in researching naval techs. something like that

 

[Camikaze]

I agree with Hail, although some would argue that having fixed leaders and traits also pushes certain strategic paths. I really don't like the idea of getting rid of the leader system, one of the defining characteristics of Civ as a game to simulate history. It may be unrealistic to have Churchill and Ramesses conversing, but that is a central defining aspect of Civ, and one that I wouldn't be happy without.

 

[Trias]

your idea again brings up my point of events and/or traits pushing you some path (or making one strategy much move beneficial then the rest). sure you do not have to take it, but you will have to overcome the penalties or the absence of a bonus.

i like the "evolving traits from playing style" idea more. you choose your path, not some random event.

this idea ties with the notion, that environment should influence the evolution of your civ. for example a civ with a lot of coastal cities should receive a bonus in researching naval techs. something like that

Although that would be interesting, it would also be hard to balance the game for different strategies. Right now playing the same start with different leaders would generally lead to a different game (BECAUSE each leader pushes the player in a slightly different direction). If you make traits dependent on play style, it may very well become that a certain start we immediately determine the appropriate game path without variation.