pre-release info New First Look: Machiavelli

[Eagle Pursuit]

I can already see Machiavelli's Modus Operandi: "Hey, mister. You should declare war on your neighbor. And your other neighbor. And your other neighbor. Gosh, you are so lucky to have a best friend like me." *stabs in back*

 

[LastSword]

I am quite sure that Prince contains an entire chapter about why relying on mercenaries and gold is bad. Maybe that is a joke here.
An essay ability.
Formal wars as a part of ability. (Though maybe it actually is gameplay-revelant in civ7)
Non-leader leader.
Ugly kid look.

The worst one on all layers so far.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Except Catherine de Medici and Enrico Dandolo.

Well Catherine lead France, so I wasn't counting her.
I forgot about Venice, so sure. Though to be fair, that's the least Italian city out of all of the Italian city-states.

 

[CivKirk64]

yes, but each Leader vid ends with a shot of a wonder associated with that leader's natural civ. Pyramid's for Hattie, Colosseum for Rome, Gate of All Nations for Xerxes, etc. You'd expect them to save White Tower for a Norman leader first look if one was in the game.

I didn't show up here to argue with anyone so please don't take this harshly because I don't intend it this way: There are too many people commenting here coming up with all sorts of divinations based on preserved patterns in the videos, and media posts. We can't be saying so confidently that Such and such civ must be announced next, or must be featured in the game because such and such pattern. We've always had unassociated wonders that didn't have a civ attached. Have they even said there will be 31 leaders at launch? Can't Firaxis surprise us? Can't they deliver the game without bounds? If a civ has 3 or 4 really interesting leader matches mechanically, maybe it can get by without a dedicated leader at launch, and allow them to, on the flip side, ship a leader that is unbound. This is hopefully not the only example and if it is for launch, I hope the popularity of this choice inspires them down the road

 

[Mudkip1001]

Now we need someone to mod in Talleyrand (to the chagrin of Napoleon) and pit them against Machiavelli to see who can backstab the most leaders!

 

[Siptah]

Now we need someone to mod in Talleyrand (to the chagrin of Napoleon) and pit them against Machiavelli to see who can backstab the most leaders!

Laughs in Fouché

 

[Teproc]

I'm really curious what would make Machiavelli suitable but not Confucius. They're fairly similar, in terms of being political advisors as opposed to political leaders.

 

[Potworny]

This is my favourite leader pick so far. Less cool is that I suppose we've now moved past antique leaders, and Greece won't get one.

I hope that we at least get hidden behaviour modifiers like in V for different leaders, so that Machiavelli is a profilic backstabber and others have more pronounced personalities. Or was such a mechanic in place in VI too? Surely there has to be more to leader's personality than their agenda.

 

[Krikkit1]

This is my favourite leader pick so far. Less cool is that I suppose we've now moved past antique leaders, and Greece won't get one.

I hope that we at least get hidden behaviour modifiers like in V for different leaders, so that Machiavelli is a profilic backstabber and others have more pronounced personalities. Or was such a mechanic in place in VI too? Surely there has to be more to leader's personality than their agenda.

That is the thing that seems disappointing, the Agenda shouldn't be part of leaders personality (their AI behavior). Instead it is a bonus, they get more game mechanic relationship with civs that do X.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

To reflect that the Prince was potentially a satire and, at the very least, not principles Machiavelli subscribed to for himself, I want to see him portrayed as something more than just a conniving backstabber. I want it to be something he turns on and off.

Because his mindset when writing the Prince wasn't that of a mustache-twirling, monologuing, flamboyant cartoon villain

It was simply cold pragmatism. He should be a leader devoid of showmanship rather than a leader who indulges in it.

Though, I can't lie, this conman persona he shows off here is very entertaining

 

[Daigotsu Max]

What a clever pick. Very iconic and interesting. The decoupling of Civs and leaders is leading (heh) to some interesting choices.

Do we know how many leaders we'll get in the base game, actually?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

This is my favourite leader pick so far. Less cool is that I suppose we've now moved past antique leaders, and Greece won't get one.

I'm not sure leader reveal orders are strictly by age, as in neither are civs.

 

[Lord Lakely]

They were *SO* close to getting it right. Cesare Borgia, and not Machiavelli should have had this skillset (or *Alcibiades* if you're passing him off as the default Greek leader). Machiavelli himself wasn't a dishonourable runt. He merely admired them from afar and wrote treatises about them ^_^

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I've always found this perception of Diplomacy (one of the all time greatest board games IMO) to be quite funny. Superficially the game is about diplomacy, but if you dig one layer deeper then it's obviously about betrayal. But look deeper than that and actually being honest and loyal to your allies 99% of the time is the best move. Especially if you play with the same people repeatedly. Not betraying your allies, and waiting for the other coalition to explode is the best way of being on the winning side. But the 1% of the time when you really dig the knife in, or even just the possibility that someone might do that, is what the game hinges around. Found that out when I used to play online daily games (ie, one move per day) a lot; I don't think I've ever finished an actual game in person before everyone was too drunk to remember what colour they were.

I played Dip in person every Sunday afternoon with 5 - 6 friends in college and yes, by the end of the day Alcohol won almost every game.

But I also played the game in fanzines privately published (in the 1960s and early 70s, Pre-Internet Era) with people from all over North America that I knew only by their in-game personas, and no question the play style and expectations were different in Games With 'Friends' and Games With Strangers.

I found, generally, that the perfectly timed and executed Stab was the most certain winning move, but was also very rare. The completely honest coalition was the most common end-game, with a deadlock between two such alliances being the most common ending of our in-person games simply because to break such an alliance with a Stab would get you Allied Against for the foreseeable future. Games With Strangers tended to be much more full of Unexpected Events simply because very few of them were ever played against the same people so your 'reputation' didn't matter.

Which brings us back to the in-game Machiavelli: if his programmed character is duplicitous, does that make him Predictable, and therefore completely 'honest' according to his programming? If you can Always depend on him to betray you, the 'betrayal' is simply your own fault, or a way you can manipulate him into a war he cannot win.

Not only is this Leader intriguing, it opens up the possibility for even more intriguing Leaders in the future: Louis XI of France, after all, was called "The Spider King" in his own lifetime for (perceived) Machiavellian tendencies, and the famous epithet for Britain was "Perfidious Albion".

There's a lot of room for some potentially fascinating Leaders and Civs here . . .

 

[Lord Lakely]

I'm not sure leader reveal orders are strictly by age, as in neither are civs.

The leaders are revealed based on the Civ reveals and what the devs suggest you to pair them with.

Machiavelli as per the First Look, is supposed to be paired with Greece and this week's reveal, the Normans.

Interesting though. Does that suggest there's no Greek leader, and that if there is a British leader, they're supposed to be paired with Britain?

 

[Takfloyd]

Finally, a leader that makes me feel truly represented. Not because I'm Italian or anything, but because I am an evil mastermind of course. Can't wait to stab all my friends in the back.

Also, a cool, thematically appropriate agenda for once instead of just arbitrary gamified nonsense. Nice to see.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I will say that I like the leader model, and also the leader portrait:

Sagacious sassmouth ♥

 

[Krajzen]

Which makes his current absence ironic, seeing how Gandhi would be the perfect fit for Civ 7’s definition of leaders. Although, I can see them still adding him as “technically a stray” leader, even in the base game when Ashoka is already there.

I think Gandhi will get in at some point late in the game's development, accompanying the "modern India" civ

 

[Potworny]

Interesting though. Does that suggest there's no Greek leader, and that if there is a British leader, they're supposed to be paired with Britain?

I think that possibly the most telling elements that I forgot to mention are the music and the colors. Civ jerseys (kinda) are associated with leaders now, and Machiavelli uses the exact scheme of Greece from previous two games. If there's a Greek leader in game, I'd expect them to use it. Unless we're getting Leonidas or someone Spartan, I guess, but I don't exactly think that's very likely.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I think that possibly the most telling elements that I forgot to mention are the music and the colors. Civ jerseys (kinda) are associated with leaders now, and Machiavelli uses the exact scheme of Greece from previous two games. If there's a Greek leader in game, I'd expect them to use it. Unless we're getting Leonidas or someone Spartan, I guess, but I don't exactly think that's very likely.

Well, it's inverted compared to the normal Greek colour scheme (which makes sense. Neutral powers are white, so Greece can no longer be white itself.), but yes this is probably the biggest indicator of no Greek leader upon release.

It ALSO suggests there's no Italy (which we suspected anyway, but this reveal confirms it) or Exploration Era British leader. If we get another Euro leader for Exploration, I would expect them to be paired with Spain.