RifE Blogpost: Leaders Table

[Opera]

Hey there, check the blog!

Today, you've got a quick post about some of the big stuff for 1.4! A bit far in time but I know people will like that, although maybe not entirely.

urlremoved/rife/blog/

 

[Cyrusfan]

Yay! something new to talk abou....

1.4?

grumble grumble blarg

edit/just kidding-it's fun to see new stuff even if it's a ways off

edit2-You're removing Mahon the Butcher? C'mon, I love that guy!

 

[Torugu]

O.o Very interesting.

Can we get an explanation why those 8 leaders will be removed though? Doesn't have to be specific for each leader, some general reason would be enough. (I probably wouldn't have realized if you had just removed them quietly so I can't really oppose it anyway .

 

[Opera]

Cheron was removed because we wanted to lower the number of centaurs for the Kurios, they are not a centaur civ.
Melisandre was removed because we felt she wasn't as interesting as the others.
Mirrough was removed because we didn't like his look and we didn't felt he was fitting.
Eldarwen was removed because we didn't like her much.
Mahon & Malchavic were removed because we didn't like them much, don't find them fitting or interesting.
Utiruso & Camilon were removed because we didn't like their art.

Note though that I'm in charge of the leaders, so those "we" above might mean "I" at times. But well, the whole team accepted my changes, so...

 

[Valkrionn]

Yeah, I'm okay with them.

Particularly Cheron. Need to add Musteval and Lamia leaders already.

 

[Opera]

Oh, then I should perhaps add two more "?" to their line in the table?

 

[Valkrionn]

I thought we'd already talked about it?

There is at least the one Musteval leader (who I believe I found art for already), and we should have a Lamia as well.

 

[Opera]

25Hour had some nice Mustevals

 

[Valkrionn]

I had a specific flavor for the leader in mind. I'll remind you on #erebus.

 

[Alsark]

I personally like Emergent Leaders with unique traits, like Nightmarish and Butcher, so it's a bit of a shame to see those leaders go (even if I never did use them - but only because I haven't played their civilizations). Tethira is probably my favorite Bannor leader, for example. The ability to offer something unique on top of the ability to essentially pick a second trait of whatever you want allows Emergent leaders with unique traits to be both interesting and dynamic, which I enjoy.

I am, however, all for the removal of leaders that add absolutely nothing to their civilization, like Melisandre - I doubt anybody would ever actually play as her, so it's really no loss.

 

[Wauthan]

Glad to see that the leaders are getting an overhaul. And a veteran designer like Opera is sure to whip up some fresh combinations. Would be great if you could post a preview sketch of them though. Leader traits are really hard to balance and with the very powerful "minor leader" feature it feels like it could easily get out of hand since you can't test all possible combinations.

 

[Valkrionn]

Glad to see that the leaders are getting an overhaul. And a veteran designer like Opera is sure to whip up some fresh combinations. Would be great if you could post a preview sketch of them though. Leader traits are really hard to balance and with the very powerful "minor leader" feature it feels like it could easily get out of hand since you can't test all possible combinations.

Can't discuss the design with discussing the new DynamicTraits code.

 

[Dissonance]

That is AWESOME!

 

[Meldon]

I liked Mirrough's art, but other than that I have no complaints.

 

[Opera]

Glad to see that the leaders are getting an overhaul. And a veteran designer like Opera is sure to whip up some fresh combinations. Would be great if you could post a preview sketch of them though. Leader traits are really hard to balance and with the very powerful "minor leader" feature it feels like it could easily get out of hand since you can't test all possible combinations.

As of now, only Historical leaders ("Major" has been renamed) are done. They're just made of a combination of 2 traits, none of which is used twice anymore.

Also, note that some traits will get some changes as well.

Important (formerly Minor) & Emergent leaders are still to be worked on though.

So we could give you a sneak peek on how are the major traits spread out now but that would reveal some new things as well so you'll have to wait

 

[Zai]

Will you just be toggling them off via removing their name from the civ's leader list (CIV4CivilizationInfos.xml), or actually deleting all relevant data pertaining to them from the xmls and such?

I actually have Eldarwen as an AI leader in almost every game I play, and I play as Melisandre quite a bit (though I changed her traits). Just wondering how much work I'm going to need to do to put them back in.

 

[Opera]

I don't know yet...

Guess we could pull them out into an inactive module. That way if you want them back, you can have them and we wouldn't have to bother with them

 

[Sjru]

Illian aren't getting any new leaders? Why?

 

[Opera]

Because they are designed so
They won't get any leader besides their two.

Similarly, the D'tesh won't go beyond 3 and the Mercurians, Infernals & Frozen won't go beyond 1.

 

[Valkrionn]

Illian aren't getting any new leaders? Why?

What Opera said. Some civs are being treated slightly differently; The Illians, due to the extreme differences between their leaders, are only getting the two they have. Adding more would just remove uniqueness from one or the other.

The D'tesh will not get any more than they have already; They focus on three unitlines, have three leaders.

The summon civs (Infernal, Mercurian, Frozen) will only have 1 leader.

A few other civs are being treated specially as well, but for them it is mostly about how their leaders are distributed between the three types.