NO LEADERS on start - new idea thread

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

But to do this, you would need either a list of actual leaders of a given civ, over a 6000 year span, which we don't have, or a bunch of made-up names. An early turn of Civ is 40 years long; you could have twenty different leaders within the space of a turn.

If you have the leaders change some limited number of times in the game--three, six, a dozen--then you go from having Civ's 6000 year old leaders to ones that are 2000 years old, or 1000. 6000 years is unrealistic, but one can cope with it by saying that that leader is just a symbol of the civ in question. 2000 year old leaders, who then die, are just unrealistic tout court.

I think the most "realistic" way to approach this is by having an option to change leaders by either 1) Progressing to the next Age/Era or 2) Switching Governments.

I think I'd prefer the latter because it would make more sense that a new leader would appear whenever there is a change in government, so a new person takes control. Of course, in regard to Civ 7, both happen at the same time unlike previous games where you could enter a new age without switching governments.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Anyway . . . they replaced identification with your civ with identification with your leader. They shouldn't further eff with that.

 

[Crashdummy]

The general idea is to just Start the Game and choose, pick your civ of choice.
Without ANY Leader attached to it.
Then, throughout the game, depending on your behaviour, achievement, etc, a Leader is born.
Inside YOUR civ. And the same happens to all other Ai civs.
It can happen at different times, and they could also DIE. (This is an OLD idea of mine - where you can KILL your Leader-King-Queen, and try to Kill other civs Leaders as well...)

So you might get a Leader you like, and keep it, but you could also get a Leader that you don't like...
In any case, the Leader should be culturally linked to your Civ.
SO that No Benjamin Franklin could ever appear to FRANCE, THE GAULS, THE ROMANS, or CHINA.

UNDO the Leader "FIRST" approach completely.
Put back Civilization "First" in the mindset again, and then move along from that as a UNMOVABLE, not dabatable, pivotal concept.

This should be one of the 2/3rd of things that should NEVER be questioned.
One of the BASIC CORE TENET of Civilization.

This concept would allow players to play the entirety of the game without ANY leader at all.
Some government type, like Kingdom... could see the birth of Monarchs Leaders... more frequently
A Republican government could see the birth of OTHER kind of Leaders (Napoleon) more frequently
But NAPOLEON could also appear as a new possible leader, whilst say KING "SUN" III of France i still alive...
You would have then to do a REVOLUTION, KILL or EXILE the old King-Leader, and then you would be able to keep NAPOLEON...

Dynamic Leaders... but it's YOU, the PLAYER, YOUR CIV,. the one IMPORTANT thing...
Your Civ will not disappear if your Leader dies... you still have your Governors AND Government; an army, etc...

ARE YOU IN FAVOR OF THIS CHANGE?

Not for the Civlization franchise

The franchise doesnt need this change, its fine if they want to test this in another franchise, but i hope they stop trying to change Core features of the franchise

We dont need Leaders to work liek Great People, we already had Great People, let us choose out Leader and Civ from the start and finish with them like we always could

I hope in Civ 8 they go back to the roots of the franchise instead of trying to go down the rabbit hole

 

[NoCure]

I do like this idea - but it's a completely different game structure. It's still odd to me that they decided that Civs (which "live" for up to thousands of years) would be the thing that changes with the Ages, but their human leaders would be immortal. I'd really like to see a version of Civ where you progressed through many leaders (maybe 10 in a full game), chosen out of a massive (>100) list, with each one providing both a current bonus and a legacy bonus to your evolving civilization.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Maybe in some theoretical version of a Civ-like game, you would have a succession of leaders all through the game (like I guess leaders age and die and are replaced in Old World).

But to do this, you would need either a list of actual leaders of a given civ, over a 6000 year span, which we don't have, or a bunch of made-up names. An early turn of Civ is 40 years long; you could have twenty different leaders within the space of a turn.

If you have the leaders change some limited number of times in the game--three, six, a dozen--then you go from having Civ's 6000 year old leaders to ones that are 2000 years old, or 1000. 6000 years is unrealistic, but one can cope with it by saying that that leader is just a symbol of the civ in question. 2000 year old leaders, who then die, are just unrealistic tout court.

I don't see any advantage, then, in having leaders change over the course of the game.

To work as a game, Civ has to be massively reductive of full historical complexity. Immortal leaders are one form of reductiveness to which we've acclimatized ourselves.

I think Mohammed for Arabia is one of those names that it really breaks your theory apart


Sorry for not entertaining you more, but you can elaborate and infer an infinite amount of variations and annoyances just by adding small bits that aren't in what I wrote, and then complain about those without me having to rewrite
the whole thing exactly the same.

If you (or anyone else for that matter) manages to infer alternative versions of what I wrote times and times again, I can't do nothing but refrain from further elaborate.

Giuliano (Last true Rome imperator) didn't kill Rome. The senate survived. Rome "transformed" because of the new "faith". The people killed Giuliano. Rome felt. Giuliano is still here. The people replaced him with the Pope, and the senate. They separate the sacred role of the emperor from the people governance.
History could have taken a different route several times in the past.
Rome is immortal. Giuliano is reborn times and times again. As Mohammed.

The only real "heroes" in Civilization 1-6 had been the "workers" unit.

This is ONE of the CORE principle that separate Civ from other games like "millennia" or "Ara" or Ctp", etc...
I love Civ because of the WORKERS first, which means you have to CARE and STRIVE for that road to that town or mine or plantation... you need to protect them... if they can't...

Leaders NEVER have been the center of all.
It has always been the Roman people, the Mongol, The Chinese...
I don't want and I didn't say I like entire families clashes and that kind of "Old World" roleplay.
But having played it, it is vastly superior to civ VII in innovation and narrative, and I don't flush the
baby with the water there... they chose a path, even if I didn't completely fell for it, I think it was
a smart move.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I do like this idea - but it's a completely different game structure. It's still odd to me that they decided that Civs (which "live" for up to thousands of years) would be the thing that changes with the Ages, but their human leaders would be immortal. I'd really like to see a version of Civ where you progressed through many leaders (maybe 10 in a full game), chosen out of a massive (>100) list, with each one providing both a current bonus and a legacy bonus to your evolving civilization.

Oof... ty...
at least one seems to have understood the spirit of the post...
just consider that it's ONLY some western culture that BURY their death...
And untill some times ago, many civilizations, believed in re-incarnation.
Same name. The God-King born times and times again. 11> Leaders is more than enough...

Sure you can go through the Egyptian King list 300+ but to other civs with less history, or one which NEVER had a God-king...
that might be problematic...

A Leader for appropriate governance kind is softer on the design...
And simpler to maintain... you choose Theocracy? You will get a Religious Leader...
You choose Republic? You will get a Philosopher... or two...
10-11 kind of governance, like three-four for each of three -four main ages is more than enough.

But every Civ had a "mythical" founder, so there is space for a "mythical" first leader...
Or even a couple... a happy family!
Two thrones room... the paintings of the past Kings on the walls...
It's still like that... the Throne room changed into the Presidential Room for almost every country
and there's still painting and sculptures of the past Leaders on the walls...

We lost something and I'm here to remind you of that.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

I dislike everything about this idea, and most especially the idea that only specific civs could produce specific leaders. What's next, only specific civs can build certain wonders? Only specific civs can use certain government? The deterministic "only historical options allowed" approach flies in the face of everything that has ever made civ fun - which is the wild chaos of seeing how far you could mangle history.

Leaders being "locked" to factions ONLY make sense in the context where the leader is the figurehead used to represent the civilization in the game, and in precisely no other context. If they're not something that's predetermined at game start (as in this case), then there is precisely no reason whatsoever for them to be locked to specific civ.

(Except deterministic delusions).

You would call a Myth predeterministic?

Rome Myth:

Romolo and Remo are the two brothers that from the myth were raised by a She-wolf.
According to the legend they founded Rome.

I know other Legends on the Origin of Rome also...

A governance may imply even a foreign Leader, in an advanced Democracy, but in Ancient times...
Only Rome ever had "Africans" leaders... or non-native of the Italian peninsula, which by the time it came to power,
the Pyramid where already that old that nobody could tell unanimously who built them...

But certainly it wasn't Benjamin Franklin leader of the Egyptian.
The point is not if it works for me...

(Randomized Leaders to all Ages has been a thing since C3)

 

[Albertan Civfanatic]

Gimmicky. Sounds like Humankind.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Native Leaders is too abstract of a core aspect of Civ that it is now impossible to even talk about it...

We are to this point...

People arguing on nothing... steering away from reality and probably thinking they are on the right side of history...

Civ was never about "history" but there has always been a certain level of realism that made it feel FUN...

To change history outcomes in every way... but there was always a basic realism aspect...

the level of abstraction with the Leaders decoupled from the Nation, as the idea of Nations itself is only a modern idea, we can
say the same for the Leaders... it is a modern idea... has broken one fundamental premises of the series.

We need to reverse the course of Civ development ontoa the right path.

I proposed an idea. It would have LARGE, BIG implications if adopted.
In my POV, it has hundreds times more FUN potential than the current state of abstraction.

Moderator Action: PDMA and Trolling removed. In future, please report posts you find problematic and do not respond to them. leif

 

[Crashdummy]

I do like this idea - but it's a completely different game structure. It's still odd to me that they decided that Civs (which "live" for up to thousands of years) would be the thing that changes with the Ages, but their human leaders would be immortal. I'd really like to see a version of Civ where you progressed through many leaders (maybe 10 in a full game), chosen out of a massive (>100) list, with each one providing both a current bonus and a legacy bonus to your evolving civilization.

Its not odd if you start thinking from a business perspective. Its much better to be able to sell more Civs than selling more Leaders

 

[UWHabs]

Its not odd if you start thinking from a business perspective. Its much better to be able to sell more Civs than selling more Leaders

It's less about selling civs IMO and more about the art and requirements. Voicing a leader, creating a custom animated figurehead, are a lot more work than designing a couple buildings and a couple units. The rest of a framework for a civ stay constant. If you had a game where you have a pool of 100 leaders to choose from, you're not getting art that's anymore complicated than a random Great Person from past games, or just a flat image like the governors from civ 6.

I mean, sure, if you want to basically pick a new leader every time you enter or exit a celebration, with a different bonus, you could do that. As mentioned they're still living hundreds of years, but you're getting closer to a human tileframe. But if you're doing that, then basically you lose any notion of leaders being great and grand, they just become great people from previous games. If I swap a leader 5-10 times in antiquity, I'm not going to care about "being" Genghis Khan for 10 turns, I'm just going to pick him because I like horses and cavalry for those 10 turns.

Again, sure, if you want civ to get back to a "civ first" mindset and playing one civ for the stretch of human history, that's a perfectly valid direction to want to take things. But I don't think you want to do that at the expense of making leaders irrelevant.

 

[Crashdummy]

It's less about selling civs IMO and more about the art and requirements. Voicing a leader, creating a custom animated figurehead, are a lot more work than designing a couple buildings and a couple units. The rest of a framework for a civ stay constant. If you had a game where you have a pool of 100 leaders to choose from, you're not getting art that's anymore complicated than a random Great Person from past games, or just a flat image like the governors from civ 6.

I mean, sure, if you want to basically pick a new leader every time you enter or exit a celebration, with a different bonus, you could do that. As mentioned they're still living hundreds of years, but you're getting closer to a human tileframe. But if you're doing that, then basically you lose any notion of leaders being great and grand, they just become great people from previous games. If I swap a leader 5-10 times in antiquity, I'm not going to care about "being" Genghis Khan for 10 turns, I'm just going to pick him because I like horses and cavalry for those 10 turns.

Again, sure, if you want civ to get back to a "civ first" mindset and playing one civ for the stretch of human history, that's a perfectly valid direction to want to take things. But I don't think you want to do that at the expense of making leaders irrelevant.

I think the suggestion made by the OP is bad, and i already wrote about it

I was just replying to the making Civ switch instead of Leaders being odd, which from a gameplay perspective is, but from a business perspective isnt

 

[NoCure]

Perhaps I'm just naive, but I think that they really want to make a good game, and are aware of the fact that, if they do so, the community engagement for such a long-running franchise will more than justify it.
I do wish they would just cut out the animated leaders (and voice overs) if they are expensive. They add very little for me, and in some cases actively detract. I don't mind seeing a relatively boring diplomacy screen as long as it is functional.
The wonder movies and general look of the games/tiles are already fantastic.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

It's less about selling civs IMO and more about the art and requirements. Voicing a leader, creating a custom animated figurehead, are a lot more work than designing a couple buildings and a couple units. The rest of a framework for a civ stay constant. If you had a game where you have a pool of 100 leaders to choose from, you're not getting art that's anymore complicated than a random Great Person from past games, or just a flat image like the governors from civ 6.

I mean, sure, if you want to basically pick a new leader every time you enter or exit a celebration, with a different bonus, you could do that. As mentioned they're still living hundreds of years, but you're getting closer to a human tileframe. But if you're doing that, then basically you lose any notion of leaders being great and grand, they just become great people from previous games. If I swap a leader 5-10 times in antiquity, I'm not going to care about "being" Genghis Khan for 10 turns, I'm just going to pick him because I like horses and cavalry for those 10 turns.

Again, sure, if you want civ to get back to a "civ first" mindset and playing one civ for the stretch of human history, that's a perfectly valid direction to want to take things. But I don't think you want to do that at the expense of making leaders irrelevant.

No, no and no...

How could you just misrepresent everything I expressed into some random idea where Leaders become completely irrelevant??? This is about FUN and FREEDOM of shaping your gameplay as you wish...

Playing the entirety of the game without ANY Leader would equal to playing a full C3 or C4 game in Tribalism or Anarchy... the latter being possible with massive penalties. Complete industry shutdown, cities in constant revolt and buildings getting destroyed each turn...

Having a lot of Leaders is FUN and switching Leaders has NOT being portrayed as an easy thing...
in the past changing government type was causing your civilization to fall into Anarchy for many turns...
Or if you had a religious based Civ that could take 1 to 3 turns... in any case BEFORE you had a government,
you had a Leader, a King, etc. in the past.

I hypotized that a DEFAULT, Native Leader, would come either ways to your Civ, but with all this new Leaders...
And Art, etc... there is no REALISM, there are no rules, it's complete abstraction... that brings chaos...

IF some rules are put in place, then players will speedrun towards certain gov types, to UNLOCK new, inherent Leaders to their Civ... will AI skip Genghis Khan and pick up its brother instead, because has realized they have no horses so it would be better for them a different approach to stifle YOUR gameplay?
Will some Leaders be linked to some Wonders so there will be a rush from all Civs to get them first???
The answer is NO... Those are Great people as you might have assumed...

ty anyway for taking your time tinkering about this idea.

PS: Switching from your first, tribal Leader, to say NAPOLEON, with.. advanced Republic??? should be a milestone... Nobody is gonna take your Napoleon away if you don't want to... except some missionary would put some venom in its drink if he decides to switch to a Monarchy... Then you'd get to choose from Robespierre or Napoleon brother of Ravaillac... but it's a government shift... would you switch or finish the game with your Firstborn Leader?? That should remain your choice in the End ultimately...

Just let me upgrade my paesants to armed civilians in any case...

PPS: There is a layer of truth to the added ability of switching Leaders and your concerns. You are expressing a pre-emptive attack on the possibility of this being exploited by everyone, with fast turns and more and more choices available I can see where you're going... Let me NOT design the system of palisades that would bring equilibrium to the game for once... try it yourself...


Just Imagine you are playing Greece and have all of the Great Philosophers, Army Leaders, Scientists, Culture-Theatre-Poems writers etc, and the the Forum, where you have ALL OF THEM at the same time, FOREVER...
It might be a unique Civ bonus... who knows... would their bonuses stack like the Great persons???
Or have stacking penalties??? ...I mean.. there's loads and loads of options still open... I have barely scratched a mirror...

YES they could become irrelevant.
NO, I didn't mean it.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Gimmicky. Sounds like Humankind.

HK has a Taoist approach to what a Civ game is.
It's an Asian concept of abstraction we have no familiarity.

in HK the Leader is just... someone...
I don't see any liason...

 

[Lazy sweeper]

Let me add one more TECH... to the mixture

ELECTIONS...

What if you had NO CONTROL over the vote of YOUR people??
This will move away from God-like game and further into simulation...

The question still remains... You start the game with either an Elderly stone circle...
or a Stone (Throne) in the middle of a Stone circle... that's determined by the bias of your Civ of choice...

On top of that you have the default Tribalism "government" type.
As turn passes and you unlock new techs and governments... you research elections...

Now by researching this tech you give your people the power to choose which Leader they do prefer...
So you might unlock Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Tuthankamon, etc etc but it would be too powerful if
you could switch between them every time you choose... and it would be also bad if once discarded you had no
chance to get them elected again...

Playing with Egypt I guess Monarchy would be the most adapt government type and that would make the people
happier and more productive... elections could work anyway but it's just not the people voting... it's the High priests...

Or Play as Greece it's the Philosophers who votes... so you might get Alexander the Great if you are producing a lot of soldiers and your Commanders are getting victorious... the people would love this and vote for a Leader like Alexander... which you need to have unlocked obviously before this can happen... with one of the Greeks specializations techs...

Now FUN means there is a level of abstraction which actually makes Alexander IMMORTAL... if all goes well...
and the people is happy with it... you might get to keep it to the End of times... or untill you decide you had enough FUN and just quit the game (Finishing the game has never been WHY we play Civ...)

But with ELECTIONS your people could just get angry at him and vote him down... he could come back back later, or if the option where Leaders can die is allowed... they may never return...
The people might vote for Benjamin Franklin even... given the appropriate conditions... and no other Civ has taken him...

It's like a further RANDOMIZATION option that would keep the current hyper-shuffle style of gameplay
alive, but would add that tiny bit of historical context to the Leaders, that could bring up ...

EMERGENT GAMEPLAY.

We could also imagine people as units... workers... etc... they could form guilds... and by lobbying for one guild...
you could "steer" the elections in your favor...
Or just kill al the workers (armed civilians) of a town who expresses a Democratic consensus when your Civ actually needs a Julius Caesar successor that is the most Bloody and Autochratic possible... Nero???
So you start a psyop and burn down ... Rome... kill half the population ( and Senate voters) so you get your consensus... except thing get wild and Rome splits in East and West... and you lose half your territories...

NOW you get to choose which side to play... the "western" side or the "Eastern side"???
What happened when Genghis Khan died?
Did Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Siberia, all jumped out of nowhere???

If the game start to focus AGAIN on PEOPLE and WORKERS, it's much more likely that
Revolutions and new Civs could see the light of day in the future.

But here's the catch... there is a REASON why this Civ switch happens...
even if not historically true (which nobody is asking for) it will make players
understand the mechanics, and perhaps, fall in love again with the franchise.