New Game Options: Leaderhead Levelups and No Positive Traits on Game Start

[BlueGenie]

I'm not seeing the need to penalize one strategy over another here. The reasons to use National Culture levels in the first place are numerous. Believe it or not, favoring the smaller nation over the larger is actually one of them. If you think about it, the biggest reason a nation (usually a human player in this case) fails to go out for the ultimate landgrab and stays a bit smaller than its neighbors is due to the building of wonders. Not just a few but as many as you can amass. And when you do that, you end up with a small, compact, but powerful nation and the challenge at that point is defending your glittering cities cuz everyone wants them now and they assume you've been lax on your military. That small nation is far more culturally powerful than a much much much larger nation that has lots of cities but very little quality in any of them.

Sure size matters, but that factor is more and more as time goes on, which is going to be the same with research, gold, military, anything really. At least now with the leveling leaderheads in play, you have REASON to continue to care what your cultural output is in your core interior cities that have no more room to expand cultural boundaries, you have REASON to want to adjust the slider to culture (beyond just trying to adjust for some emergency happiness during war), and you have REASON to build culturally productive buildings when that's all they do. Finally... culture matters again and can stand on similar footing to Gold, Research, and Espionage in value.

I will respectfully have to disagree with this, again. *wink*

A small nation that concentrates more on Wonders and such will still be far, far, far, behind in any Cultural "War". The reasons are very simple really:

A) All of the small +1 buildings you can build in every city amass quickly to very high numbers all in all. Especially if using the Animal Culture Bomb tactic. That is; bring an animal along that can build the Carnival, two lesser animals for the Menagerie buildings, and enough animals for a lot of Animal Cages.

B) Anyone expanding knows you need to get culture up in the new cities to gain territory and expand to be able to use the BFC as quickly as possible. Once there you can relax unless bordering on another nation but you will still have gotten to between 20 and 30 /turn in those cities while they are still relatively new settlements.

C) Wonders are great, but not for getting up. The relative low amount of you get for a Wonder, relative in comparison to what you already have in a City and to the time it takes to build said wonder, does not make up for settling even one new settlement considering points A and B.

D) Core Cities of course have more buildings and because of that also more That is a given. Most of the total in those though comes from being around longer and not really from having that much more in output. Even with Wonders and other "bigger" buildings middling cities can easily aspire to match these old cultural heavy cities in pure /turn. After all the older a city is the more it becomes part of the core city system.

In finalization, to run a few numbers using my latest game as an example, which you all know I so delight in doing... *grin*:

In the beginning of Classical Age I have amassed 19 cities.
Of those eight are "Core" cities, some since long, some recently. Two cities are middling, leaving nine newly settled cities where a couple have reached pop 6 but most are between 2 and 4 in pop.

Capital has 145 /turn.
The remaining seven Core Cities are between 90 and 118 /turn.
The two middling cities have 73 resp 78 /turn.
The nine settlements have between 18 and 54 /turn.

If I had stayed with the eight Core cities only they might have been between 100 and 120 /turn instead. Why? Because there is not really much more to build that gives in those cities. They ARE Core after all.
It takes at most one and a half Middling City to match a Core City, two to match the Capital.
It takes less than five settlements to match a Core City, my nine easily count as if I had 2 more Core.

So expanding without going expansionist and not Animal Culture Bomb in settlements my cities count as if I had 11 and a 1/2 to 12 Core Cities wise, or up to 50% more /turn in total vs. only having the 8 Core cities to play with.
In a couple hundred turn time (not that long as it is on Eternity after all) I could be at 75% or more more than the 8 Core.

I remain on the opinion that the system currently favours expansionistic behaviour. Greatly.

Cheers

 

[ls612]

Sadly, I still don't know how to screenshot without the snip tool...

Use the printscreen key in Civ and it saves a screenshot to Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword/Screenshots.

@topic: I like the way you would like to do the Trait upgrades, but I do not think that it should be called leveling up. That just sounds too fantasy to me. Also, I'm slightly leery of the Prestige traits or whatever they are called. It also screams fantasy characters at me. Basing it on Culture though was a great idea, it will make the Culture slider really useful.

So instead of being a total negative nelly, I would suggest that this is only done for the core traits at the moment, and we hold off on the Prestige traits for a long while and see how it plays out with normal traits first. Also renaming some of it would be good IMO.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Leveling up your leader is no different than leveling up a unit and is not necessarily fantasy just because the concept stems from D&D which was the original RPG, which also happened to have a fantasy focus. The term is simply the easiest way to encapsulate the concept in one word.

The Prestige traits would be icing on the cake once we have the next levels developed on the base traits of course. The ideal would be to have every combination of capped out traits lead to a trait between them and calling the Prestige traits is just a forum term for our use to understand what we're referring to.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I will respectfully have to disagree with this, again. *wink*

A small nation that concentrates more on Wonders and such will still be far, far, far, behind in any Cultural "War". The reasons are very simple really:

A) All of the small +1 buildings you can build in every city amass quickly to very high numbers all in all. Especially if using the Animal Culture Bomb tactic. That is; bring an animal along that can build the Carnival, two lesser animals for the Menagerie buildings, and enough animals for a lot of Animal Cages.

B) Anyone expanding knows you need to get culture up in the new cities to gain territory and expand to be able to use the BFC as quickly as possible. Once there you can relax unless bordering on another nation but you will still have gotten to between 20 and 30 /turn in those cities while they are still relatively new settlements.

C) Wonders are great, but not for getting up. The relative low amount of you get for a Wonder, relative in comparison to what you already have in a City and to the time it takes to build said wonder, does not make up for settling even one new settlement considering points A and B.

D) Core Cities of course have more buildings and because of that also more That is a given. Most of the total in those though comes from being around longer and not really from having that much more in output. Even with Wonders and other "bigger" buildings middling cities can easily aspire to match these old cultural heavy cities in pure /turn. After all the older a city is the more it becomes part of the core city system.

In finalization, to run a few numbers using my latest game as an example, which you all know I so delight in doing... *grin*:

In the beginning of Classical Age I have amassed 19 cities.
Of those eight are "Core" cities, some since long, some recently. Two cities are middling, leaving nine newly settled cities where a couple have reached pop 6 but most are between 2 and 4 in pop.

Capital has 145 /turn.
The remaining seven Core Cities are between 90 and 118 /turn.
The two middling cities have 73 resp 78 /turn.
The nine settlements have between 18 and 54 /turn.

If I had stayed with the eight Core cities only they might have been between 100 and 120 /turn instead. Why? Because there is not really much more to build that gives in those cities. They ARE Core after all.
It takes at most one and a half Middling City to match a Core City, two to match the Capital.
It takes less than five settlements to match a Core City, my nine easily count as if I had 2 more Core.

So expanding without going expansionist and not Animal Culture Bomb in settlements my cities count as if I had 11 and a 1/2 to 12 Core Cities wise, or up to 50% more /turn in total vs. only having the 8 Core cities to play with.
In a couple hundred turn time (not that long as it is on Eternity after all) I could be at 75% or more more than the 8 Core.

I remain on the opinion that the system currently favours expansionistic behaviour. Greatly.

Cheers

You say that wonders aren't that great a bonus to culture and there's where we greatly disagree. Especially in your key cities that tend to double up on bonuses, adding % culture modifiers from special buildings etc... I guess it does depend on the wonder. But with the way wonders are now (extraordinarily expensive to build again) they can't help but impede wild growth. So you end up making a choice, much like we did in Vanilla BtS, between building them, and expanding. And if you do either you're likely to do well with culture. If you take the third strategy, war, you can often capture highly cultural cities along the way from those that took the first road (wonder building). All in all, any given strategy should be equally valid here regardless. And if there's a slight favoring of the expansionist strategy, I'm not seeing a problem with that. The game always has favored larger nations, provided they are not larger than your upkeep structure will allow, and perhaps it should.

The reality is, WHAT you select in terms of traits should matter even more than how MANY traits you gain, and in this, the player will probably have a bit more strategized focus. The AI will be select traits according to their own preferences but will not be statically predictable. And if we go with the traits proposal I've made, you'll have a vast variety of challenges stemming from other leaders with all kinds of trait combinations.

 

[Vokarya]

I agree that the nomenclature needs some work. I don't think we should be using the term leaderhead at all, because without the base traits, the leaderhead becomes a figurehead; all you have is a face and an AI personality. The traits don't seem like they are interacting with the leader at all. I'd suggest calling it Trait Development.

Also, I don't think that leaders are ever referred to as leaderheads in game -- they're just leaders. Leaderheads are the artwork, and that's it. Units don't "level up" either, the level is just a count of how many promotions the unit has earned and how hard it is to get the next one. RPG Level systems generally have across-the-board benefits (the level-up gives you more of every fundamental characteristic, and maybe leaves some things to customizing), while Civ only has the customizing. It would be a true level-up mechanic if you got a free Combat promotion at every level, plus another specialty promotion.

 

[strategyonly]

Also, I don't think that leaders are ever referred to as leaderheads in game -- they're just leaders. Leaderheads are the artwork, and that's it. Units don't "level up" either, the level is just a count of how many promotions the unit has earned and how hard it is to get the next one. RPG Level systems generally have across-the-board benefits (the level-up gives you more of every fundamental characteristic, and maybe leaves some things to customizing), while Civ only has the customizing. It would be a true level-up mechanic if you got a free Combat promotion at every level, plus another specialty promotion.

Come to think of it, that makes ALOT of sense, Leader! As in "Leader of the Free World."

 

[Thunderbrd]

I agree that the nomenclature needs some work. I don't think we should be using the term leaderhead at all, because without the base traits, the leaderhead becomes a figurehead; all you have is a face and an AI personality. The traits don't seem like they are interacting with the leader at all. I'd suggest calling it Trait Development.

Also, I don't think that leaders are ever referred to as leaderheads in game -- they're just leaders. Leaderheads are the artwork, and that's it. Units don't "level up" either, the level is just a count of how many promotions the unit has earned and how hard it is to get the next one. RPG Level systems generally have across-the-board benefits (the level-up gives you more of every fundamental characteristic, and maybe leaves some things to customizing), while Civ only has the customizing. It would be a true level-up mechanic if you got a free Combat promotion at every level, plus another specialty promotion.

The traits are very much interacting with the leaders as they are here. If a leader changes (which apparently IS possible, maybe as a revolutions mechanic - not sure where this is currently implemented at the moment but the coding is there for it.) then the new leader makes new selections.

This system also needs to be distinguished from the Cultural Traits project also under development on the C2C forum which is another way entirely to develop emerging traits (more like Dynamic Traits... based on how you've played.) Eventually, both would be playable together or without one or the other or without both.

The leader personalities are the biggest factor in determining which traits AI leaders
select so it is in fact the leader making the selection.

Now, if you play with Random Personalities, No Negative Traits, and No Positive Traits on Gamestart, you'd be absolutely correct that the leader would be little more than a name, a loose potential cultural connection (again depending on options), and a picture. But its still the personality selected at random for that leader that guides it in making decisions on which traits to go for.

Furthermore, an eventual extension project would make the leader itself a unit on the board and there would be a correlation between its traits and its promotions... not an overnight project from here as what you have here and some further trait development is as far as I want to go with this sector for now.

So indicating that we're talking about developing LEADER traits is very critical to longer term plans than just this addition. I'd be happy to take the 'heads' portion out of the term so I'm willing to compromise.

To me, levelups just makes sense and if I were a new player it'd be the quickest way to explain the concept in so few words. RPG characters don't all gain benefits across the board when they 'level'... they do so according to their class and some systems allow the character to select which class progress they wish to make whenever they level, and THAT is much like what this system is (or rather what it will be once additional stages of development are added to the base traits.) But if you can think of a better term that would capture the idea so quickly then I'd be open to changing the name further.

 

[Vokarya]

To me, levelups just makes sense and if I were a new player it'd be the quickest way to explain the concept in so few words. RPG characters don't all gain benefits across the board when they 'level'... they do so according to their class and some systems allow the character to select which class progress they wish to make whenever they level, and THAT is much like what this system is (or rather what it will be once additional stages of development are added to the base traits.) But if you can think of a better term that would capture the idea so quickly then I'd be open to changing the name further.

I'll look for something. I have two issues with using the word "levelups":

• It breaks verisimilitude. It's a game-speak term that doesn't carry over well into the "real world" that Civ is supposed to model.
• It's too blatant a rip-off from another genre. While we can borrow elements from other genres, I don't think we should be ripping them off so openly. It just feels reckless. How does advancement sound?

 

[strategyonly]

If anyone lately has seen the REAL stories of the US Presidents, now narrated by Oliver Stone, these are very and i mean VERY eye opening stuff. (Since the NEW release of the Privacy Act papers now available to everyone).
Ref: LBJ was actually 1/2 to a day from NUKEing Vietnam six (6) times, did anyone know that??
Eisenhower was the dirtiest of the dirty he was actually around the worst warmonger ever. Thats all he thought about was "war." Him and J. Edgar Hover and Duhlles (name spelled wrong).
Reagan actually Hated Gorbachev, and only by the American Protesters did he give in to get the Berlin Wall down. Gorbachev was actually very frighten of the Star Wars program, if you read on it, it was pure FAKE.

This is just to name some of them. You'd be surprised by the rest how much they are/were crooks/ ie: Nixon.

No offense to the USA of course i Love this Country. But at least know the facts. Well some of them.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I'll look for something. I have two issues with using the word "levelups":

• It breaks verisimilitude. It's a game-speak term that doesn't carry over well into the "real world" that Civ is supposed to model.
• It's too blatant a rip-off from another genre. While we can borrow elements from other genres, I don't think we should be ripping them off so openly. It just feels reckless. How does advancement sound?

hmm... Leader Advancement... doesn't really capture the concept without mousing over the option for more info.

How about: Leaders Earn Traits
?
I guess that would shorten to the LET option in forumspeak eventually huh? lol

btw... cool info SO!

 

[civfan613]

I love the idea of having also your general traits evolving like promotions.
As of making it more fair and random (less abusable) - simple:
Make the upgrading event RANDOM, as in, you're forced to choose 1 trait per level, but you can't know (random), will it be positive or negative.
Also, a big enough pool of possibly earnable traits must be provided for this to be fun.
Eg. if someone is already despotic and anti-cultural, one can become simply anti-social, which would have both traits doubled (on-the-spot example, without reviewing the real traits).
But I strongly promote the idea of having BASIC and ADVANCED traits to make it worthwhile.
Pretty much like promotions, but kinda more possibilities to employ.
As in, more things to affect, even unlocking units/techs/civics/etc.
Eg. no Super Fanatic unit unless you are one yourself.
Or no Supreme Technology tech unless you are at least a level 3 Scientist.
Or no way to influence Slavery if your Barbarity level is below 2.
Etc etc etc...
ALL of it - stackable!
I even suggest making "clean" leaders the default option, letting you (and AI) to develop yourself according to your flavors (which still influence the basic traits you can choose from; again, the bigger the whole pool, the bigger the fun).
Meaning, instead of having 2-3 preset traits, you'll rather have a pool of, say, 5-6 possible starters per leader (with the pool being at least 20 for more fun).
Then, you can upgrade traits each level AND be able to choose an additional basic one either once per few levels OR as a random thing (the latter anyways also having negative traits as a random-yet-mandatory option, if you're "unlucky").
More so, if somehow possible, I even think of UNLOCKING the possible basic/advanced traits via certain events or techs or other prereqs.
As in, eg. to evolve your Scientist to level 2, you must have Writing AND 10 Libraries AND used at least one Great Scientist, while for level 3 this would require Computers AND some Great University wonder AND having 5 GSs in one city.
Basically, the detailed options here are so numerous, it's really FUN to play with.
Just saying.

 

[Faustmouse]

More so, if somehow possible, I even think of UNLOCKING the possible basic/advanced traits via certain events or techs or other prereqs.
As in, eg. to evolve your Scientist to level 2, you must have Writing AND 10 Libraries AND used at least one Great Scientist, while for level 3 this would require Computers AND some Great University wonder AND having 5 GSs in one city.
Basically, the detailed options here are so numerous, it's really FUN to play with.
Just saying.

That sounds very similar to the "cultural heritage project" Micael started a while ago and I tried to develope further. Do you think there is a way to implent parts of it in your idea? I really like the idea to select "traits" that fit the style you play.

Also, I really like the idea of needing a Lvl3 Scientist for some units and that stuff!

Regarding the "favouring smaller nations" discussion you had, how about making the requirement for selecting a new trait not the total culture but the culture per city?

 

[civfan613]

@Faustmouse
I'm just a bystander with some fun ideas, I'm no part of the actual project, unfortunately (not gonna change, though).
I'd SO love to see a branched out tree of possible LEADER development based on one's actual gameplay, but I have no idea whether it can be that easy to implement...
I'd go as far as making actual LEADER STATS (affecting one's trait development and/or accessibility), as in: culture, science, food, etc USED or PER CITY or TOTAL - or all combined; also: units, great people, war and peace times, unit levels, victories vs losses of battles, etc etc etc etc etc...
But I'm pretty much acknowledging this being but a DREAM...

@Developers
What I mean, is a very flexible in-game leader development, enabling much more diverse gameplay, when your decisions actually matter more than just at face value.
...
A fun extension to this would be something similar applied to units, eg. number of victories/losses, number of turns fortified consequently, number of upgraded times, number of promotions already applied, etc.
As in, not just plain and dull "this leads to that" tree based on experience levels, but rather actual EXPERIENCE leading to promotions.
Yeah, I know, "dream on"...

 

[Faustmouse]

Yeah it would be cool if your leader has an XP-Bar for science, culture, war etc and gain XP from some actions like "kill X units", "build X School of Scribes" etc and if he get enough XP in a specific bar, he could choose a new trait.

 

[Alex Costa]

If anyone lately has seen the REAL stories of the US Presidents, now narrated by Oliver Stone, these are very and i mean VERY eye opening stuff. (Since the NEW release of the Privacy Act papers now available to everyone).
Ref: LBJ was actually 1/2 to a day from NUKEing Vietnam six (6) times, did anyone know that??
Eisenhower was the dirtiest of the dirty he was actually around the worst warmonger ever. Thats all he thought about was "war." Him and J. Edgar Hover and Duhlles (name spelled wrong).
Reagan actually Hated Gorbachev, and only by the American Protesters did he give in to get the Berlin Wall down. Gorbachev was actually very frighten of the Star Wars program, if you read on it, it was pure FAKE.

This is just to name some of them. You'd be surprised by the rest how much they are/were crooks/ ie: Nixon.

No offense to the USA of course i Love this Country. But at least know the facts. Well some of them.

Add to that the rumours that LBJ was involved in the potential assassination of JFK.

 

[Thunderbrd]

The cultural heritage project has been given some due consideration in all of this. This system is designed to represent the skills and personalities of the leaders themselves and how their policies affect the nation.

Cultural Heritage traits are being designed to represent the nature of the people and the accomplishments of the nation. That system will be further enabled once the development there is a bit more complete.

Tech prereqs are intended to be used for the selection of some traits to be designed.

As to using traits AS prereqs for some other areas... not a bad idea. It'd need some new tags in those areas to support but I'd be all for getting those in eventually.

Regarding the culture per city stuff... play with this for a while and if it really stands out as something we need to do then it'll be taken into further consideration. For now, I don't feel its necessary since I believe numerous strategies can equally take advantage of the National Culture volume and there's some very good reasons to go about it via National Culture. Such suggestions are very similar to suggesting to rework the research mechanism in the same way and I'd be against such a rework there too. Larger nations, provided they maintain decent quality in their cities are simply going to be more powerful nations... and they should be.

 

[civfan613]

Thanks for looking into it.
I just hope I see something of this sort one day...
Would be wonderful to play a bit of RPG-style too.
Both units AND leaders.
It would benefit the gameplay immensely...

 

[Thunderbrd]

Would be wonderful to play a bit of RPG-style too.
Both units AND leaders.

That's a project for down the road but is one I do want to see happen someday!

 

[civfan613]

Well, as long as it's on the-things-to-do-eventually, I'm happy.

 

[MagnusIlluminus]

A couple of ideas for names based on Civ4.

Upgrade. We upgrade our units, so we upgrade our leader.

Improvement. We build improvements on the terrain, so do we improve our leader.

Development. (Slightly more of a stretch) As we develop our technology, so do we develop our leader.

Otherwise this sounds very interesting.