vale
Mathematician
Just to clarify, this is an idea i had for a mod, but I don't know how one would actually go about setting it up (read do not know nearly enough about modding beyond the simplest xml tweaks):
Ultimate Customization:
Idea:
All leaders and civs start with no traits, no techs, no UBs, and no UUs. During the advanced start setup period, these things can be purchased in a manner similar to the way purchases currently work during advanced starts.
Problems:
Balance is an issue since costs for all the traits/UU/UB will have to be worked out and weighted against the costs for techs, units etc. Some decision making process for the AIs should also be fleshed out and implemented and there should be some sense of synergy and personality when the AI makes its choices (ie Gandhi should be less inclined to buy praetorians, aggressive and charismatic than say Montezuma).
Potential Solutions:
There have already been discussions about the relative strengths of traits against other traits, UUs against other UUs, and UBs against other UBs. So that could be a jumping off point for the relative costs within groups. If a good weighting system were developed as a result of those discussions, to weight among groups, the relative value of the best from each group against each other (i.e say financial vs. praetorians vs. terrace) could be discussed.
Weights of the bonuses vs tech costs and units would be more troublesome and probably have to be adjusted as some playtesting happened.
The AI decision matrices could be based on things like there personality matrices, original traits, "close" to original traits, original UUs, same era UUs, original UBs, same era UBs. So when a player met an AI, even if it wasn't the exact same as the original, it would feel somewhat like a Bizarro world version of the original.
I find advanced starts to be fascinating and the decisions made during them to be non-trivial. I think expanding the concept would be really cool if it could even be done within the current framework.
Ultimate Customization:
Idea:
All leaders and civs start with no traits, no techs, no UBs, and no UUs. During the advanced start setup period, these things can be purchased in a manner similar to the way purchases currently work during advanced starts.
Problems:
Balance is an issue since costs for all the traits/UU/UB will have to be worked out and weighted against the costs for techs, units etc. Some decision making process for the AIs should also be fleshed out and implemented and there should be some sense of synergy and personality when the AI makes its choices (ie Gandhi should be less inclined to buy praetorians, aggressive and charismatic than say Montezuma).
Potential Solutions:
There have already been discussions about the relative strengths of traits against other traits, UUs against other UUs, and UBs against other UBs. So that could be a jumping off point for the relative costs within groups. If a good weighting system were developed as a result of those discussions, to weight among groups, the relative value of the best from each group against each other (i.e say financial vs. praetorians vs. terrace) could be discussed.
Weights of the bonuses vs tech costs and units would be more troublesome and probably have to be adjusted as some playtesting happened.
The AI decision matrices could be based on things like there personality matrices, original traits, "close" to original traits, original UUs, same era UUs, original UBs, same era UBs. So when a player met an AI, even if it wasn't the exact same as the original, it would feel somewhat like a Bizarro world version of the original.
I find advanced starts to be fascinating and the decisions made during them to be non-trivial. I think expanding the concept would be really cool if it could even be done within the current framework.
