New Agendas

[Amrunril]

I think the biggest challenge in desgning agendas is that, in order to satisfy players with different perspectives, they really need to make sense in two different ways. To satisfy players focused on immersion role-playing or simulation, agendas need to make sense in-universe. That is, they need to be something a real world leader would care about. To satisfy players who see civ primarily as a strategy game and the AIs as rival players of that game, agendas need to make sense as strategies or playstyles that an actual player might pursue.

The game's existing agendas are a mixed bag in this regard. Many of the leader agendas (Teddy's, Cleoptra's and Gandhi's particularly come to mind) work quite well from both perspectives. The real world and the world of strategy gaming are both full of leaders/players who care about protecting there spheres of influence from intrusion, who "suck up" to stronger powers or who hope to maintain peace. On the other hand, some of the more competitive agendas (Qin and Pedro's) make sense from the strategic/gameplay perspective (who hasn't gotten mad at another civ for "stealing" "their" wonder or great person) but seem a bit off in-universe, and many of the hidden agendas (environmentalist, devout, cultured... ), as well as many of the suggestions in this thread, make a lot of sense in-universe but seem completely arbitrary from a strategic perspective.

Here some examples of new agendas that I think would work well from both perspectives:

Balance of Power: This leader dislikes any civ becoming too powerful and will seek alliances against the strongest player.

Loyalist: This leader will try to maintain friendships (and rivalries) even when changing circumstances would cause others to abandon them.

Opportunist: This leader will not hesitate to change sides when there is advantage to be gained by doing so.

Expansionist: This leader will expand aggressively and react with extra hostility towards civs that settle cities or buy tiles in nearby land.

Proselytizer: This leader likes civs that adopt his religion and dislikes those that remove it with inquisitors or apostles or attack his religious units.

I also really like Victoria's "Indecisive" and "Positive Thinker" suggestions

 

[nzcamel]

edit: aaaand, I promised myself I wouldn't post for 30 days... didn't last long.

What were you thinking!?

 

[God of Kings]

Atheist: Does not bother with religion at all; dislikes civs with religion

 

[nzcamel]

Atheist: Does not bother with religion at all; dislikes civs with religion

Sounds like an agnostic to me
Atheism should be included in the game as a religion.

 

[God of Kings]

Sounds like an agnostic to me
Atheism should be included in the game as a religion.

To clarify, atheist agenda strongly dislikes civs who bring religion to them the most (with a dislike for civs simply with religion), along with not doing religion on his/her own part at all; in other words, quite the opposite of Mvemba a Nzinga

 

[nzcamel]

To clarify, atheist agenda strongly dislikes civs who bring religion to them the most (with a dislike for civs simply with religion), along with not doing religion on his/her own part at all; in other words, quite the opposite of Mvemba a Nzinga

I get your angle. An agnostic would be meh about it all, rather than absolutely unhappy about it.

Edit: I still think, say, Absolute Empiricism would be a more accurate name for such an agenda

 

[Siptah]

Atheist: Does not bother with religion at all; dislikes civs with religion

You mean dislikes civ that found a religion? Or even civs that get converted? Because you can't get rid of both once you have a religion in your cities. So it's an agenda that you either decide before you know someone has it (founding a religion) or you can't do anything about it (no defense against foreign religion without own religion).

 

[God of Kings]

There needs to be a unit that can be recruited from campuses upon researching the Enlightment called "Secularist" who removes all religion from a city, generating some science.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

Allies have great intelligence (so to speak)

I've learned having Harald as an ally is amazingly powerful in the early game. Having those sea sailing ships act as your eyes is quite good. As are the City States! Steps are simple: Send a delegation, offer shared open borders early, maybe denouce one of his opponents if need be, Never bother to offer yourself as a friend- wait for him to offer you, then ask for an alliance when able. The world is open for you to see!