S3rgeus's Wheel of Time Mod

[counterpoint]

permit me to make a rather S3rgeous post...

Things have been very busy 'round here, and starting tomorrow I'm traveling (via Gateway)... I may be able to post while I'm out, but I'm not sure. Worst case, I should be back to continue on Monday or Tuesday.

 

[counterpoint]

My brain's still in the wrong time-zone, which means everyone's still asleep - a chance to post!

This seems like a good ranking system to me. I've sort of short circuited this process a little with my suggestion above to start a shortlist for some civs already, mostly based on prominence and non-numerical assessment of how valuable they are. We'll see if my rankings below line up with those suggestions!

I'll also include a short bit about why I gave out a particular ranking to a civ.

[...stuff]

I'm also ending up marking quite a few modern civs low on the Placement category, because of the glut of modern civs. But obviously if we take that too far, it ceases to be the case. Probably not likely to happen, but worth keeping in mind!

sounds good. I'll be following your assessments, and chiming in on whether I agree or not. Agreed that we should focus on flavor and sort of see where it leaves us - in most cases, the mechanics can indeed be flexible.

I'll also add up our numerical scores, though without any weighting of particular categories (which is arguable). When we disagree, my final score will be the average of our two scores. A flawed system, of course. (feel free to adjust these scores if you change your mind, or add weight to categories if you prefer - in any case, it's not science, it's just to provide some kind of "objective" measure). afterwards, i'll try to put together a kind of "big picture" list of civs as they appear to line up, FLC-candidacy-wise, based on these numbers, and see how they fit with "feel" as well.

I've elected not to list VCs with the averages (e.g. "The Aiel (Culture/Domination)" or whatever), since in most cases those are flexible enough that we can kind of put them aside for now. Once we've agreed on a kind of ranking and-or shortened the list of candidates, we can reattach these secondary aspects.

To that end, let me first drop some "averages" for the civs I added in the other day, though you of course haven't chimed in on them.

The Two Rivers
Total Score: 12 [this score is interesting. High, but still probably not high enough to include them]

Aldeshar
Total Score: 9

Almoth
Total Score: 8

Isle of Madmen/Land of Madmen
Total Score: 12

Pre-Consolidation Seanchan
Total Score: 13 [interesting!]

This seems like a good assessment of the Aiel - Domination then Culture is a good, flavorful combo for them. I could see them being an LB civ, but it doesn't cry out for it, possibly as a secondary. And a primary as Domination has some useful mechanical overlap.

The Aiel
Prominence: 5 - the Aiel are all over the books, very well culturally defined and with tons of important characters
Flavor: 5 - They've got a lot of unique stuff to them which should make pulling out uniques very easy.
Mechanics: 2 - I don't see the Aiel particularly exposing new mechanics for us or interfacing with ones that will be particularly underserved, unless we do something super cool with Wise Ones and T'a'r.
Placement: 4 - Modern day, which lets them down a bit, but still one of the only known-for-deserts civs we have.

My thoughts on the LB civs are in the previous long post, but I'd say, flavor-wise, the Aiel actually would make some great sense as an LB civ - they are, after all, central to the prophesies of the Light.

But then again, that provides some rather strong arguments against doing that - 1) they're central to the Light, which is perhaps problematic (in that their "biased" to one side), and 2) the flavorful things that make them central to the LB, and thus would make for good mechanics, are also things that would work well as mechanics for the other VCs - thus, don't really need to be attached to the LB itself. I'm thinking of things like their late-game unification, coming over the wall and conquering lands, etc. Of course, if we went "all in" on LB-uniques, something that boosts their power when using the car'a'carn would be fitting, but I think that's the kind of thing I, at least, don't want to do.

I agree with your first few scores, but would actually boost your final two by one:

Mechanics: 3 - The Aiel are really our only flavor-ful way of creating a T'a'r UU. I feel like we kind of have to grab that.
Placement: 5 - I understand why we could dock them for being "modern day," but... they aren't, really. This civ, as far as I can tell, dates from the beginning of the Third Age. Considering the low-tech nature of their Uniques, we can pretty much put them in any era. Combine this with Desert, and we have a 5. However, of course I do understand that, to fit the "feel" of the books, we probably will feel compelled to make their uniques late-game, but we certainly don't have to (and probably should resist!)

The Aiel
Total Score: 16 and 18 = 17

I may have been giving Altara a bad rap up above, though I'd still put them on the chopping block as potentially-not-FLC. I think the fact that it doesn't particularly call out for any of the victory conditions also makes it less useful. Culture seems the most likely, but I don't feel like the flavor drives us to definitely do that.

If we aren't uber short on Science civs, I'd be inclined to go for Diplo second.

Altara
Prominence: 4 - Probably Altara's biggest positive, readers will be familiar with it and many characters from it.
Flavor: 3 - There's a lot about them culturally as a people, but not so much about them structurally as a nation, or stuff that maps well into CiV concepts.
Mechanics: 1 - They don't seem to offer us anything we don't have elsewhere.
Placement: 1 - Modern, Authority, normal-ish Westlands folk. There could be a niche for coastal which might make this a 2, but a lot of the Westlands civs were on the coast.

I mostly am with your assessment on their FLC candidacy. The SuperGirls just spend oh so much time there, though....

I feel like Flavor gives us plenty to work with for UA and maybe even UB... UU's, not so easy. Mechanically, though, I'd boost them a little bit, though:

Mechanics: 2 - They offer the potential, because of the kin and such, of a channeler UU, which isn't easy to come by in this lore.

Altara
Total Score: 9 and 10 = 9.5

That is somewhat surprisingly low (if we weighed "Prominence" higher, which I perhaps ought to, this would shoot way up).

Like I mentioned above, I would like to try the flavor approach for both a Children and non-Children Amadicia. Domination seems like a good one, as does Culture.

Children Amadicia
Prominence: 3 - Despite being modern, Amadicia itself is often outshone by the Children.
Flavor: 3 - The Children also appear prominently in the books and adapting their known structure to the civ helps here.
Mechanics: 4 - A good civ for interfacing with Paths to the Light. In fact, the perfect one.
Placement: 2 - Modern, generic terrain, only Oppression really helps them out.

Non-Children Amadicia
Prominence: 3 - Same country as above
Flavor: 2 - Not nearly as much to go on, saved from being a 1 only by existing during the books, so we have more ancillary interactions with it.
Mechanics: 1 - Nothing really stands out.
Placement: 2 - Same as above.

So Children Amadicia clearly provides more in this ranking.

I agree with all of this, though I could also understand lowering Non-Children Amadicia's stats:

Non-Children Amadicia
Prominence: 2 - the country itself is somewhat invisible in the books, IMO
Placement: 1 - take away the children, and we have almost nothing to make them "special" - don't even have oppression anymore!

Children Amadicia
Total Score: 12

Non-Children Amadicia
Total Score: 8 and 6 = 7

I feel like Diplo should be Andor's focus after Elayne took the Sun Throne in Cairhien through diplomacy. But there are certainly other considerations. Andor as a country is known to be one of the stronger ones. LB as one of Andor's victory conditions could also be worth considering, since its forces played an important part in the books' LB, and the characters who spearheaded the LB were primarily from there. Though all of that could be seen as more books-timeline than properties of Andor as a civ.

Andor
Prominence: 5 - It doesn't get much more prominent than this!
Flavor: 3 - We have a lot of very specific Andor flavor, but a lot also falls into the generic modern Westlands category.
Mechanics: 2 - I don't see much in new mechanics here, beyond some specific callouts to things that we saw in the books, like Alum, Dragons, etc.
Placement: 1 - Modern, generic terrain, Authority.

I think Andor as an LB-civ is just as you say - something linked to its characters in the book, not so much its inherent traits. But yes, I can see diplo being a big deal in Andor. I'd guess Diplo and Domination, in some order, are the best choices. Besides, those two things could help make it a good LB civ, inderectly.

I'd actually boost one trait:
Flavor: 4 - It's no Seanchan or Aiel, but I think we have plenty of Ammo for uniques here. Between Queen's Guards, Dragons, Two Rivers stuff (if adapted), and other stuff, I'd say we have more than enough. UAs and the rest should be easy, too. This is relative to most other civs, which have much, much less.

Andor
Total Score: 11 and 12 = 11.5

(lack of weight strikes again! Less than Amadicia... This is interesting actually, and perhaps we don't need to weigh Prominence higher. The truth is, Andor is a "lock" regardless of what its score is - the scores will be most helpful to help us determine the placement of those civs that *aren't* locks).

I think Diplo and Culture are the way to go here (in that order) - I never saw the Sea Folk navy as something that other civs were scared of militarily in the books.

Sea Folk
Prominence: 4 - Very prominent, but not quite the setting of the books.
Flavor: 4 - A lot of unique stuff, but we know unfortunately little about their actual settlements.
Mechanics: 4 - As a navy-focused civ, they can have uniques where few other WoT civs can.
Placement: 4 - One of our very few actually naval-focused civilizations, and they're not Authority or generic terrain. They are modern though.

The Sea Folk have done pretty well!

Hmm... I know what you mean about the navy, but on the other hand, The SF give us pretty much the only reliable source of UU naval units (we'll have to add more, of course), so it's hard not to make them be a naval power for at least part of the game - even if the UU or UUs aren't combat bonuses (e.g., faster movement), such things help naval warfare). So, for me, Diplo is clear winner, with Dom and Culture pretty much tying for second.

Agree with your scores, except for on. I considered raising "Placement" to a 5, because there's nothing about the SF that has to be "modern" - probably their uniques could go anywhere we want.

Mechanics: 5 - Navy, as you mention, but also they offer us a good deal of flexibility with a Windfinder UU - a naval unit? A channeler? A naval channeler? Certainly interesting

The Sea Folk
Total Score: 12 and 13 = 12.5

Science is a good call on this one, because we're otherwise relatively short on Science civs, it seems. Probably due to the slow technological progress in WoT. Diplo as second sounds good.

Cairhien
Prominence: 4 - Very major in the books, possibly a 5.
Flavor: 3 - Despite being quite central, there isn't tons of unique stuff, but I doubt we'd have trouble finding some.
Mechanics: 1 - They don't seem to offer much other Westlands civs don't have.
Placement: 1 - Modern, generic terrain, etc. Could be improved if we took their proximity to the Wastes to affect their starting bias, though we probably wouldn't want to go full desert.

Surprisingly low scores, really, for such a central civ.

I think Science is short in WoT mostly because it's not something Jordan appears all that interested in. Lots of warriors are discussed, and even odd cultural traits and such. But he talks more of clothing and weaving than he does of industry and research.

I agree with your scores mostly. Toyed with Prominence as a 5, but I'm not sure Cairhien is super essential in the story really, so I agree with your four. However:

Mechanics: 2 - I'd be inclinded to boost this because of The Game of Houses - I suspect this will play into their UA, perhaps a UB or something, and it'll give us some interesting economic, cultural, or diplo flexibility (or even governor-related mechanics) that'll likely be quite unique. Otherwise, blah as you say, so probably can't justify higher than a 2.

Cairhien
Total Score: 9 or 10 = 9.5
(killed by the low final two scores!)

I'm finding that in our quest to have less Domination focus, Domination hasn't actually come up that much so far. I'd be inclined to go for a Domination Illian, since they're known to be militarily aggressive (along with Tear) in the books, as you mention. And Culture as a second because of the Horn is a good call.

Illian
Prominence: 4 - Also very central to the books.
Flavor: 3 - Like Cairhien, not tons of stuff that's unique to them.
Mechanics: 1 - They don't seem to offer much other Westlands civs don't as well. Nothing underserved anyway.
Placement: 2 - Improved a bit by being coastal, but otherwise modern and Authority.

regarding domination as not coming up that much, I see what you mean. That said, if we do end up with most civs having two UUs, a great many civs will become something akin to de-facto Dom civs.

Agreed with Illian, though.

I'd boost one score:

Mechanics: 2 - The Horn. This is a weird part of the game that nobody else gets to play around with, Uniques wise. If we use it for them, that gives them something

Illian
Total Score: 10 and 11= 10.5

Domination seems like a good call. LB seems like it would make a good second, or possibly even first, given Manetheren's specific demise and known opposition to the Shadow. (Not suggesting their uniques would necessarily be Light-focused, the bonus could apply to both sides and playing Shadow would just be playing against flavor intentionally, but as I mention above, I think a Light-specific bonus isn't something we should rule out completely.) Particularly something that affects the TW would make a lot of sense. (Which I generally factor in as "part of the LB victory" - the same way gold/CSes into Diplo or Great Works into Culture.) Or possibly Culture as a second, given how strongly their cultural influence has stood the test of time into the era of the books.

I'd also go for Liberation for the Philosophy, since we defined Authority before as deference to the Tower, which having an Aes Sedai as Queen wouldn't be. Scratch that, an Aes Sedai Queen could still respect the authority of the Tower. Still, I feel like Authority is more about the modern Westlands doctrine of non-direct diplomacy from Aes Sedai and the opinion of channeling that they foster. An Aes Sedai Queen doesn't quite line up with that.

Manetheren
Prominence: 4 - I'd say the main characters refer to it often enough that readers will recognize it quickly.
Flavor: 3 - Not too much, but not a complete absence either.
Mechanics: 3 - A good opportunity for interfacing with Alignment mechanics.
Placement: 4 - An underserved time period and still recognizable as a civ.

The LB is an interesting one here. Obviously, it's totally anachronistic to give them a directly-LB-related unique, as their civ is long dead by then. However, having them have something going on in the TW is very suitable. However, again, I'd suggest that this isn't necessarily truly an "LB VC" if we do this - they could get military, economic, or cultural (even diplo) benefits from exploits in the TW, that help their overall game, not just their LB prominence. Of course, if give them specific Alignment boosts as a result of their TW actions, that could be one (the only?) exception, if it was "Do stuff in TW and get alignment", but also find that somewhat uninspired, actually.

I'd say Dom/Cult seems good. Also, agreed on Liberation.

a few edits, though I considered dinging Placement a little because, as it turns out, the Era of Nations may not be *that* underrepresented, especially considering civs like the Aiel and SF that are era-flexible. I also considered lowering Mechanics as well. I'm not sure Alignment is a *great* fit, really. Honor and stuff in the Trolloc Wars is all fine, but since killing Trollocs in the TW *already* gives you alignment, I'm not sure boosting that is very fun. However, considering they offer us the possibility of TW-related uniques at all, I'll leave this score alone (much as I raised Illian's score above for the Horn).

Prominence: 3 - I get it, but if Cairhien's a 4, this one isn't also a 4.
Flavor: 2 - I find we have actually rather small amounts of direct flavor to draw from. Not much that applied to uniques, at least. We can use the "Band of the Red Hand," of course, and Longbowmen or something, but on the other hand, both of those things might feel more connected to modern-day activity to readers (Mat's Band, and Two Rivers Longbowmen), which makes them problematic. I'm unsure about this, but I'm lowering it for now [Incidentally, if we want Longbowmen for this civ, we might cause ourselves some issues with our "tech progression" in units - based on our slower rate of unit evolution, a longbow in era two or something might be hard to justify... we'll see)

Manetheren
Total Score: 14 or 12 = 13

I would be tempted to go for Culture second actually, because their Culture seems to be fairly aggressive when they return to the Westlands. They're isolated by geography before that, but their ways and customs start to affect the peoples of the lands they claim very quickly. It also lines up well with Culture being more aggressive in BNW than it was before that expansion - where spreading your influence isn't necessarily peaceful.

Domination first totally makes sense.

Also they are very much not an LB civ, given they didn't even believe in Shadowspawn when they first arrived in the Westlands and had to be coerced into helping at all. They're the definition of Neutral there.

Seanchan
Prominence: 5 - The bad guys - everybody loves to hate them.
Flavor: 5 - They've got all of the unique things. All of them.
Mechanics: 5 - They can potentially twist around the channeling system and make a very unique playstyle out of it.
Placement: 4 - Modern, which cost them a point, though they have been around for a while compared to some other Westlands civs. They've got their own continent, which lets us be flexible with start biases (might want to just go with avoid tundra).

The Seanchan, the well fleshed out civ with all of the flavor!

I can understand Culture as second-place. It's a toss up for me. I feel like science does seem appropriate as well, but either way is fine.

Regarding the LB - keep in mind that I'm mostly opposed to "direct" LB VCs - "the definition of Neutral" shouldn't exclude them. Neutrality is a side on the LB. Their last minute decision could play a part of such a thing. Granted, I don't want this kind of VC, but I'm just saying - we shouldn't be inconsistent: if some civ's dedication to the light is a consideration, then so should another civ's ambivalence.

Agreed on all scores.

Seanchan
Total Score: 19

(almost a perfect score!)

This is the one I'd say LB as primary makes a lot of sense. Shienaran society is generally centered around dealing with Shadowspawn, and we get to see a lot of that in the early books. Domination could be second, or possibly even Diplo, given that the Borderlander nations had that whole pact to fight the Shadow thing going.

Shienar
Prominence: 4 - Very prominent in the early books, less so later on.
Flavor: 3 - Shadow-dealing-with stuff gives them some uniqueness.
Mechanics: 3 - Related to the flavor score, this is one of our main candidates for interacting with the Alignment system (Shadowspawn, Alignment, TW, LB).
Placement: 3 - Modern and Authority, but one of the few places actually up towards the "edge of the map". A tundra start bias would be cool, or it would totally work for us to make a new "Blight" start bias.

I see what you mean about the LB, and I've discussed this a lot above. However, I also could easily see shadowspawn-related things be a source for some other kinds of VCs - providing culture, or economics or whatever. I'm not sold that *any* civ should have "LB" as its primary. I understand the argument here, but I also worry that by slapping "LB" on them, we're sort of grabbing at some notions of Borderlander culture, and almost being lazy with them, mechanically (by saying it means they're the "good guys" and leaving it at that). I feel like we could go in different directions here, if we wanted. Dom/Culture or Science/Culture fueled by epic defense, even. I'm not saying they can't interact with the alignment system, though.

just one modification, though I considered docking placement as well as Prominence.

Flavor: 2 - I'm not sure we have all that much ammo here. No "named" UUs spring to mind, for instance. Yes, they have shadow-dealing-with stuff, but it's all generic borderlander flavor, I think

Shienar
Total Score: 13 and 12 = 12.5

I could see Science as a second off the back of the Illuminators having their "main home" there, and the Illuminators being one of the largest organization in WoT that's more real world invention-y than channeling related. Diplo first seems like it could be a good one. We could even stretch to Science first if we're short on Science civs.

Tarabon
Prominence: 4 - Fairly prominent
Flavor: 3 - Not a lot to go on here, surprisingly
Mechanics: 1 - I don't see them giving us much.
Placement: 2 - Tanchico is on the coast, which is a little useful. Otherwise not much.

I'm fine with science, though I'm not sure we'd need to affix the illuminators to them (since they're not necessarily universally linked with Tarabon itself). Diplo/Science probably fine.

hmm... as above, considered docking prominence, and also flavor. I think these are fine, though.

Tarabon
Total Score: 10

I feel like we have a relatively high percentage of Diplo civs, but that's just an impression, not an actual count, so we'll see later. With that in mind I could see us going with Domination first, Diplo second, given their ongoing war/skirmishes with Illian. Or maybe Culture in the running given their unique stance on channelers in the Westlands that has persevered despite the Tower's intentions.

Tear
Prominence: 4 - Good and prominent.
Flavor: 3 - Not a lot, structurally, that makes them stand out.
Mechanics: 2 - Also not really much here, beyond the specific callouts we gain from them being around during the books.
Placement: 3 - Better than other Westlands civs, as they're on the coast and have a unique-ish channeler outlook.

Yeah, we'll see what the ultimate count of diplo civs is later... also, almost all of the so-called diplo civs don't *need* to be diplo civs (SF being perhaps a key exception). I do see Tear as one of the prime candidates though, but of course domination also works - I'd just want to make sure we don't blur them with Illian too much. Culture doesnt seem as strong to me.

hmmm...

Placement: 2 - I understand what you mean about channelers, but I'm not sure that gives us anything we'll really be able to use in the game itself. And if it did, it's covered by Flavor and Mechanics above. Essentially they're a warm weather coastal civ, just like Illian.

Tear
Total Score: 12 or 11 = 11.5

 

[counterpoint]

Category 2!

Good call on Science here. I could also see Domination here, given their ongoing fight with Tarabon over Almoth Plain. Diplo off of the mercantilism is a good one too though.

Arad Doman
Prominence: 3 - Not as much as some other modern, civs, but still very recognizable.
Flavor: 3 - Not too much unique about them, but as a modern civ we have more from the books' events.
Mechanics: 1 - I don't really see any unique mechanical things here.
Placement: 2 - Coast and plains (rather than the more generic grassland stuff everyone else in the Westlands is on) both help it a little.

mostly agreed, though I'm tempted to lower their Flavor to 2.

Arad Doman
Total Score: 9

Like Shienar, Arafel could be an LB focused civ. The main risk here would be that, if we introduce more Borderlander civs over time then we don't want them all to be LB focused. Then again, they make very good LB-victory-focusing candidates, because it lines up really well with their flavor.

Arafel
Prominence: 2 - Very sparsely mentioned, despite being modern day.
Flavor: 2 - Not much to go on, but we do know a few characters from there.
Mechanics: 2 - Not much new, though lines up well with an LB focus.
Placement: 1 - There are other, better modern Borderlander civs.

I don't see arafel as so Lb-focused, not more than anybody else, really. they're borderlanders, but don't seem to play all that big a role in the end-game events. See comments above on LB (blah blah blah).

Mostly agree, though:

Placement: 2 - I really don't see how Shienar gets a 3 here, and Arafel gets a one. They have the same tundra/blight thing going on. If anything, this makes me want to pull Shienar down to a 2. yes, Shienar is more prominent than Arafel... which is why it has a higher prominence score!

Arafel
Total Score: 7 or 8 = 7.5

(you're screwed, Arafel!)

I could see us having LB as one of Aridhol's focuses, but making it more about their generation of Alignment, and particularly during the TW. (Unlike modern Borderlander civs who have LB focuses that would probably be more centered around advantages in the LB itself.) This way we can wink and nod at the Shadar Logoth transformation in this civ's structure. It also provides us a unique civ in that it has a specific flavor connection to the Cleansing of Saidin, which none of the others do.

Aridhol
Prominence: 2 - Recognizable, but overshadowed by Shadar Logoth.
Flavor: 2 - Not much about them before the Logoth-ness, as you mention.
Mechanics: 4 - Potentially a lot if we take in some unique Alignment interactions and Cleansing interactions.
Placement: 4 - Like Manetheren, they're from long ago but still have a name fans will know.

My comments on this civ's link to the LB are detailed elsewhere, I'm pretty sure. I can see it, like Manetheren, having some TW-related stuff. Having Cleansing-related things, though, seems highly problematic to me, as I think I've outlined before. If they have a cleansing-related UU.... why aren't they Shadar Logoth? If some random CS (as we've intended) is the civ that becomes SL, then it doesn't make much sense for Aridhol to have anything to do with it (especially since the civ was long dead by that era anyways).... Not sure I love hitting the LB VC so hard here

agree with most of your scores. Tempted to lower Flavor to 1, though, as if we mostly strip the logothi stuff, we're left with essentially nothing. I'll change this, though:

Mechanics: 3 - I actually considered dropping this to 2. It might give us some TW-or-Alignment related stuff, but I find the cleansing-related stuff sketchy, at best. Left it a 3 because we should at least entertain the possibility of such things (or SL-anything), and i shouldn't discount it outright.

Aridhol
Total Score: 12 and 11 = 11.5

Interesting that I wouldn't have considered Far Madding for FLC-ness. Not that I don't like the idea, it just never really occurred to me. Probably partially because I think they were, like Mayene, technically a CS in the books, and if elevating a CS to a civ, I would go for Mayene first. Diplo seems like a good primary, but like some others, the flavor doesn't really force us towards and one condition. I could see us putting Science in as a secondary, given they exist without channeling, which probably affects non-magical progress.

Far Madding
Prominence: 3 - Known but not too much.
Flavor: 2 - With The Guardian's flavor tied up elsewhere (presumably), they don't have a lot left.
Mechanics: 2 - Not much, unless they have some kind of channeling connection.
Placement: 2 - Modern and generic terrain, but a different channeler outlook.

agreed on your overall assessment. I considered them here only because... it seemed it was our job to at least consider them!

Considered lowering their Prominence. Also considered lowering Placement, but their CS-nature keeps them up slightly.

Mechanics: 3 - Perhaps a bit of a boost is in order because of their CS-nature - allows us to do some fun things that only really Mayene can do.

Far Madding
Total Score: 9 or 10 = 9.5

(overall I'd say things look grim for Mayene)

Interesting, definitely! I would like to, like Amadicia, try both a Prophet and non-Prophet approach. I mentioned this already, but it does seem quite a shame not to have Alliandre as a leader some day, given how much we see her in the books and she is a queen.

Prophet Ghealdan
Prominence: 4 - A part of several character arcs in the books.
Flavor: 3 - We can make the Prophet uniqueness go a ways.
Mechanics: 4 - Like Amadicia, one of the only civs that the flavor tells us should focus on Paths. Also could uniquely interact with the "Barbarians" since they're Dragonsworn.
Placement: 1 - Nothing unusual here.

Non-Prophet Ghealdan
Prominence: 4 - Same as above, possibly even boosted by how much we know Alliandre.
Flavor: 2 - Not as much.
Mechanics: 2 - Not much new here, though we could nod to the Prophet-ness without it necessarily being led by Masema.
Placement: 1 - Same as above.

There's also something of an argument to eventually having both.

See my notes in a previous post about Alliandre being somewhat unfit as a ruler...

Recall also that I don't think Prophet Ghealdan means Alliandre (or some other leader) *couldn't* be the leader - their uniques would just relate to the nations susceptibility to cult-ness.

Mostly agree:

Prophet Ghealdan
Mechanics - 5 - mechanics could connect to alignment, if we wanted, and not just paths or dragonsworn. to me we have lots of flexibility here

Non-Prophet Ghealdan
Prominence: 3 - I considered knocking this to a 2! Despite you wanting it to be higher. You take away the prophet, and all we have left is alliandre, who's just a follower of Perrin's. How is she more prominent than all the Saldaean's we know (who generated a 3 from you)?

Prophet Ghealdan
Total Score: 12 and 13 = 12.5

[Non-Prophet Ghealdan
Total Score[/b]: 9 and 8 = 8.5

(things looking good for the Prophet, and not for the... not-prophet)

Originally I didn't think this would work, but I've certainly come around since then. Hawkwing fills a lot of niches for us, so I like him as an FLC. I'd also go for Shandalle as the civ name, just to avoid naming it after the leader, which we don't seem to do anywhere else.

Shandalle
Prominence: 4 - Not modern, but very prominent for an older civ.
Flavor: 3 - A bit difficult to dig up structural flavor that's unique to them.
Mechanics: 5 - Very clear victory intentions, and as you mention elsewhere, uniquely placed to interact with the Governor system. And potentially the Tower too, given Hawkwing's siege of it.
Placement: 5 - A recognizable and effective civ in that massive hole in the middle of our timeline, where nothing seems to come from!

this civ is a lock for me, at this point.

I could see lowering Mechanics a bit, but otherwise, I'm with you:

Shandalle
Total Score: 17

Basically everything I said for Arafel applies to Kandor, they're very much alike. In fact, I'll just give them the same scores for the same reasons.

Kandor
Prominence: 2
Flavor: 2
Mechanics: 2
Placement: 1

and I suppose I'll make the same edits!

Placement: 2 - same rationale as above

Kandor
Total Score: 7 or 8 = 7.5

(you're also screwed, Kandor!)

If we were to add a second Borderlander civ as an FLC, I'd say Malkier would be the way to go. They're very recognizable through Lan and are positioned very well to focus on the LB victory. They could also potentially do Culture as a second, given how many of their people persisted with its customs elsewhere beyond the death of the kingdom itself.

Prominence: 4 - Very recognizable.
Flavor: 3 - Not too much unique to them, but still some flavor.
Mechanics: 3 - Their death at the hands of the Shadow could make some great LB interactions.
Placement: 4 - Given that they're not a modern civ since they die before the books start, even if shortly, this gives a feel of filling the past in a bit more. Also great candidates for a Blight/Tundra start.

I agree, Malkier would be a nice 2nd borderlander, followed closely by Saldaea. Your point about them feeling like a past-civ is a very good point. Being earlier in the New Era allows us some flexibility - could even start their uniques as early as era 4, if we needed to, I'm guessing.

Again, not totally sold on the "LB-ness." They have honor and fight shadowspawn and such. That doesn't need to translate into what I think you're assuming it translates into. If we place them in the blight, providing bonuses against shadowspawn - or rewards for beating them - is somewhat a "compensation" for such crappy city-locations. Making them have these gives them survivability in such a location (true in some ways for all borderlanders), and makes the civ viable. From there, we can use it to fuel any victory condition we wish. Could even do crazy stuff where you gain culture or diplo bonuses if you let cities be captured...

Mostly with you on the numbers, though I almost docked a point on Flavor. We really have quite little, in terms of "usable" flavor.

Prominence: 3 - the same as cairhien? as Hawkwing? I'll have to lower this. It's a lot like Manetheren, to me.

Malkier
Total Score: 14 and 13 = 13.5

(looking good for Malkier!)

Another I wouldn't have considered as FLC, but totally a good one to consider. If we're going to elevate any CS, I'd say this is the one to do. (And Berelain is awesome. I've mentioned she's my favorite character, right?)

Prominence: 4 - Very prominent.
Flavor: 3 - A lot of good diplo flavor, but it kind of ends there?
Mechanics: 3 - Could definitely have some CS-relevant abilities, which I don't see us having elsewhere.
Placement: 2 - I don't think jungle start is as important for them, because Illian, Tear, and Altara are all on about the same latitude (Illian is actually further South on the map) and could have some jungle. Otherwise they're modern, etc.

I thought Cadsuane was your favorite character? Or maybe that's just relate to everyone else (who hates her). Yeah, berelain is cool. I found myself more than once wishing Perrin would just make the swap and move on...

Adjustment:

Flavor: 4 - I think this is an example where we have just exactly enough flavor. Between oilfish and such (maybe a sea-resource building?) and Winged Guards, I'd say we're more covered than most civs.

Mayene
Total Score: 12 and 13 = 12.5

(look who's creeping in!)

Probably not a good FLC candidates for reasons we've both covered before. They've got some flavor, but not much.

Prominence: 2 - Surprisingly low for a modern civ.
Flavor: 2 - Not much beyond some passing references.
Mechanics: 1 - I don't see any specific mechanics they offer.
Placement: 1 - Modern, generic terrain, blah.

Yeah, Murandy's absolute rock bottom for a modern civ.

No edits.

Murandy
Total Score: 6

(6! Almost by definition, all of the "don't include these" random civs from Category three would score higher - because they'd almost all have good Placement scores from not being modern).

Like Arafel and Kandor before it, Saldaea is a bit general-Borderlander-y. It gains a bit of prominence from Faile and Davram Bashere, and Queen Tenobia, but otherwise has all the same issues. I'd go for Sheinar and Malkier first.

Prominence: 3 - Faile and Davram Bashere, and Queen Tenobia boost it a little over Kandor and Arafel.
Flavor: 2
Mechanics: 2
Placement: 1

Same reasons for the last 3.

I could see us pushing their prominence up to four, but I won't.

Same edit, plus another:

Flavor: 3 - I think we have more than you think. A fair amount of cultural stuff, plus the heavy cavalry and such. Not a bunch, but an average level, which feels like "3" to me.
Placement: 2 - tundra/blight. Considered given them a 3 since they're also coastal.

Saldaea
Total Score8 and 10 = 9

(seems surprisingly low!)

This is one of the civs that falls into one of the phantom categories for me, in that I don't feel like the Shaido are a discrete civilization for long enough in WoT history to warrant omitting another major civ from launch. Not to say we wouldn't include the Shaido later, but it seems like an oversight to do so off the bat.

Anywho, holding that aside for a moment, their rankings:

Shaido Aiel
Prominence: 3 - Very prominent for a short time, but I'd say less so than other visible modern civs because of how short a time that is, by comparison.
Flavor: 2 - They overlap quite a bit with the general Aiel in this department.
Mechanics: 3 - This could be a uniquely Shadow-y civ, which could be interesting. Or possibly Dragon-related, nodding to Couladin.
Placement: 3 - Modern, but desert, like the Aiel. But they're only really separate from the rest of the Aiel when they're outside the Waste in the books.

Good point. Regardless of their "score," it would feel odd to include them at first launch.

I do of course want to resist making them "shadow-ey" - [it]this[/i] kind of LB civ isn't one I really want. That said, I do concede that the things you mention do potentially lend themselves to interesting uniques, if taken more abstractly.

No numerical edits.

Shaido Aiel
Total Score: 11

(a rather high score that we'll probably disqualify)

Like Hawkwing, I originally wasn't considering these guys, but they do fill a lot of niches for us! They could also have a cool, non-Borderlander relationship with the LB. And also potentially quite a Shadow-y one.

Shara
Prominence: 3 - Like the Shaido, we only really see them for a short time.
Flavor: 5 - They're very different from most other civs.
Mechanics: 4 - Like the Seanchan, a lot of opportunity to interact with the channeling system.
Placement: 3 - They've been around a long time (right?) so could be considered non-modern. We also don't really know much about their geography?

I think they're a lock for me. I'm definitely not keen on making them super shadowey... it just kind of sucks. Like, thousands of years of history (though they're kind of evil as a civ, much like the seanchan), and then one coup d'etat and they're shadow. Seems very "book version of the history"-centric to me.

A few edits:

Flavor: 3 - It's true they're different than other civs, but how much do we really know about Not very much, right? We could scrounge up some uniques, but honestly there's going to be alot of conjecture on our part. That lowers the score a lot for me.
Placement - 5 - we can do anything with these guys. Pull from any era. Any start bias - any of it seems fair game to me. The one counterargument is of course that if we want the "Freed" as a unit, they'd have to be late-game. Otherwise, could do whatever. That equals 5 to me.

Shara
Total Score: 15 (our scores balance out)

(a numerical lock, it almost seems)

For reasons I've mentioned already, I wouldn't be inclined to use the Tuatha'an as an FLC, but I do love the idea of having them as a civ eventually.

In terms of their victories, Culture definitely seems like a good primary. I would also sort of be inclined to go for Science as a secondary. Our innovations could be framed by them as "look at this cool stuff we brought from elsewhere" which would make a lot of sense.

Tuatha'an
Prominence: 4 - Very prominent
Flavor: 4 - Quite a bit of uniqueness to them.
Mechanics: 5 - The Tuatha'an could see us potentially invent a new way to actually play the game. That sounds a bit melodramatic, but a completely non-war civ would be a totally new experience in CiV, and if we did it right, a really, really freakin' cool one.
Placement: 2 - Modern and nothing particular about their location that makes them stand out, beyond the nomadic nature.

Science as a secondary seems a little sketchy to me..... I can get it, but I also feel like diplo might be stronger.

Mostly agree:

Prominence: 3 - I think they're like the Shaido. Prominent at times, but absent for most of the series
Placement: 3 - again, there's nothing necessarily modern about these guys. They appear to have split off from the aiel a long, long time ago. So, I'd say we have some flexibility here

Tuatha'an
Total Score: 14 (scores balance out)

(easily the most prominent civ that we'll probably disqualify as an FLC)

I think of all of the category 3 civs, the only one I'd like to promote into this discussion of possible FLC candidacy is Aramaelle (note, it seems to end with an 'e' in the Companion:

Aramaelle
Primary: Diplomatic
Secondary: Any (Possibly LB)
Notes: As the creator of the Compact of Ten Nations, and given that flavor's importance in WoTMod, Aramaella can interface uniquely with that diplomacy process. They're also another Ten Nations Era civ, which gives us some more content toward the front of the tree. We also know that its capital is where Fal Dara is in the modern day Westlands, so it's close to the Blight, and could therefore be LB-ish.

Size: Probably Tall
Starting Bias: Tundra or Blight (possibly leaning Tundra, since the Blight wouldn't have been as big back then)

Flavor bits:
Some city names - Mafal Dadaranell, Rhahime Naille, Anolle'sanna, Cuebiyarsande
Creator of the Compact
Leader - Queen Mabriam en Shereed - was an Aes Sedai and a Queen, possibly ta'veren
Mabriam's Day - feast possibly named after the above Queen that is observed in modern Westlands

I would avoid giving a ranking and explaining the civ in the same post, but I think the time we'd lose on this civ needing to go back and forth one more time (and taking it out of sync with the others) is more of an issue, so here are my rankings!

Aramaelle
Prominence: 1 - Who's this now?
Flavor: 2 - An Aes Sedai Queen and the Compact author gives us some flavor for this, but not as much for UB/UU/UI
Mechanics: 4 - My main reason for elevating for consideration - well positioned for unique interactions with the Compact itself. (A UA that changes votes or something.)
Placement: 5 - Possibly the only "northern" civ we could place in non-Blight Tundra specifically. Also from an underserved time period.

agree with your desire to consider these guys. Agree with your general assessment.

Also agree with most of your numbers. Considered lowering Placement to 5, since we do have a few others from that era, but coupled with its region and such, I'll leave it:

Mechanics: 3 - I don't think this is as epic as you do. Useful yes, but not huge. Am I being too harsh?

Aramaelle
Total Score: 12 and 11 = 11.5

(not doing so bad!)

 

[counterpoint]

Also, on the note of the early game, did I already mention that we have a presumed big hole in Era 1? I think I mentioned it already. Of course, we could elect to start some civ's flavor early (whether it be an era 2 civ, or else some other primitive unit, e.g. an Aiel unit). The problem with that is of course the flavor - part of the Era of Nations' existence is that that's when the true civs first popped up. thoughts?

Below I'll list all the civs and their scores, and see how things break down. But I'm close to the end of this set of quotes, so i'll finish them first:

I think one of the core roles of the start biases is to capture the flavorful feel of the civilization in question, which I mentioned above. It's also something we can use to ensure that civs who are dependent on certain geographical features as a part of their uniques (buildings that can only be built near rivers or mountains, units that are good against Shadowspawn, which are found near the Blight, unique naval units which they need coastal cities to build, etc.) don't get stuck with part of their uniques unavailable due to randomness at the beginning of the game.

It's also worth calling out that if the game is unable to find a suitable start location (one with a few resources and favorable terrain yields) for a civ in its given start bias, then it will totally drop them elsewhere, and where that is will be random. This obviously happens 100% of the time if the selected map type doesn't provide for a given bias. (Coastal on Great Plains, for example.)

Victory conditions are totally on point. As I mentioned above, Ideology biases in BNW aren't really a separate thing, they're generally derived from victory biases and assessments of the world at the time.

understood and agreed.

I'll start with that Zigzagzigal's guide is super impressive, that's a ton of content! And also that the skew towards Domination is definitely very significant. I think there may be good reason for that though! More below!

Yeah. Would be awesome to see guides like this on *our* game/civs!

I think your first point definitely plays a lot into it. I think another big reason for this is that Zigzagzigal's guide is a strategy guide, rather than a design guide. So he's going through all of the best ways for a human to utilize the civilizations. And, as we've mentioned before, the CiV tactical AI is terrible at actual turn-by-turn tactics, which means combat heavily favors the human player. I'd say this skews the results in favor of Domination, because even a single UU or relevant ability gives an already advantaged human player even more to tip them toward Domination. I'd say if the AI was better, or were this a multiplayer guide, then we'd see a better distribution as some of those Domination civs became relatively more effective at what is currently their secondary victory types.

Firaxis may have intended some of the civs that were selected as Domination to head towards other victory types (notably IMO, Arabia, Assyria, China, Germany, Persia, and Poland). Still, that does leave it Domination-heavy. And I think part of that is that the remaining civs flavorfully do lean towards Domination. so I'd say allowing ourselves to be led appropriately by the flavor to a greater extent than we might have otherwise could be a good call here.

great thoughts. I think you have the right of it. Agreed on your assessment, and also on your suggestion at the end there.

This seems like a good idea in general, we don't want a lack of any certain victory type among the civs we have available.

ok, general VC balance desired (possible exception being Domination)

This is very interesting to consider in an abstract way, and compare to the flavor and specific choices that we have above.

With 14 civs divided among 5 victory conditions, it would make some sense to have 3 of each for 4 VCs, and 2 for the last one. But I think there will be some civs that don't necessarily focus directly on one of the victory conditions, and their focus is more on specific mechanics of the game.

Civs in BNW I'd say are like this are: America, Austria, Byzantium, Celts, Inca, Mayans, Shoshone, Spain, and Sweden. While these civs have bonuses that do help them towards certain victory conditions, the main purpose of at least some portion of their uniques is to change the way the player interacts with a certain subsystem of the game, providing them with new opportunities to pursue a variety of strategies with them.

So that makes me think a simple 4 groups of 3 and 1 group of 2 for the victory conditions is not quite what we want. Something more like 5 groups of 2 and 4 mechanic-specific civs might be more appropriate? But again, I feel that as long as we avoid obvious imbalances, our civ selection can be driven quite significantly by flavor and "feel", because that's a big part of what players want and get out of a civilization's uniques.

I agree with this in general, though we can't really tackle specific numbers until we decide what the heck we're ultimately doing with the LB VC. But I do agree that we can leave some civs to be "swing civs" that move between VCs, especially those that focus on the special mechanics (Paths, etc.).

As I mention above, I don't think start biases are necessarily as important as we're considering them here. I think their primary purpose is to make sure the player has an experience that "feels" like an individual civ. The main mechanical justification is probably, which I mention above, trying to make civs' uniques that are geographically sensitive useless less often.

As long as all of the civs don't have the same one (they're not all trying to be in the desert or tundra, when there will only be a few starting locations of that type on any given map), then we won't have many problems. And of course a start bias of none just means the civ will be placed wherever the game assesses is a good starting location after all of the "picky civs" with biases have been placed.

yeah, I think I'm with you here. See how it all falls, then see if there are any problems.

I think the "avoid" ones are there for civs that are notably flavorfully dissonant with such a start position, but don't have any other particular requirements. This lets them be placed in appropriate locations but makes it easier to use them to fill in the map after "pickier civs" have been placed already.

And of course, if no starting locations are available for a civ's bias on the generated map, that bias will be ignored. It just "tries the bias first."

got it. Understood.

I think stacking them in a logical "and" fashion would make them too restrictive and unlikely to be filled correctly in a lot of the randomly generated maps.

I believe there are fallback biases for some of the civs, when their primary starting bias is unavailable. I do seem to remember something about a bug making those not be considered, but it's certainly possible in the general case.

ok, so let's probably just keep things to 1 bias per civ, then.

Adding "Blight" as a start bias seems like a good call, particularly if we have LB-specialized civs, since their uniques will presumably interact with Shadowspawn in some way.

Yeah. This'll certainly be case by case - depending on whether we can make a civ's uniques able to withstand the blight, but not ultimately just be a net-zero effect and make them feel pointless.

Rivers is an interesting one. There isn't a river start bias in BNW, but several of the other start biases often result in civs being placed near rivers (particularly the desert one). When the game considers how to place a civ, it looks for locations that have several resources nearby (strategic, luxury, and bonus) as well as tile yields in the area around it. Because rivers have a positive effect on the food yield of unimproved tiles, the selection process often gravitates towards rivers when choosing or creating starting locations. I mention the desert bias above because it's almost impossible for the game to choose a desert start location that isn't near/on a river, because the yields are too low on non-flood-plains desert tiles. The same also affects the Tundra bias, though to a lesser extent because tundra hills + forest gives a decent production output and can be considered viable that way.

However, if we had a civ whose uniques or flavor made being near a river a key part of how they worked, then we could totally add an explicit river bias, to prioritize getting that civ near a river where we could. In the end, the primary role of starting biases is to provide the map generator with a selection method that is sensible for arranging the civs on a randomly generated map.

What do you think we should do, then? I suppose the only civ that would scream for this is the Two Rivers - a river start without desert. If we don't include them, is it probably simplest (and thus best) to just leave this out?

(semi-related. Sucks that the Aztecs don't have a "near lakes" start bias).

***

OK,let's recap some civs! And this'll be where I stop today.

Doing these in score order. If a civ has a * by its score, that means its score is possibly contentious and an average of two scores, or else hasn't been ranked by all of us (thus we could adjust this list afterwards if you so desire). And of course you could suggest a weighted system, which would change all of these scores.

Seanchan: 19
The Aiel: 17*
Shandalle: 17
Shara: 15*
Tuatha'an: 14*
Malkier: 13.5
Manetheren: 13*
Pre-Consolidation Seanchan: 13*
Mayene: 12.5*
Prophet Ghealdan: 12.5*
The Sea Folk: 12.5
Shienar: 12.5*
Children Amadicia: 12
The Isle of Madmen/Land of Madmen: 12*
The Two Rivers: 12*
Andor: 11.5*
Aramaelle: 11.5*
Aridhol: 11.5*
Tear: 11.5*
Shaido Aiel: 11
Illian: 10.5*
Tarabon: 10
Altara: 9.5*
Cairhien: 9.5*
Far Madding: 9.5*
Aldeshar: 9*
Arad Doman: 9
Saldaea: 9*
Non-Prophet Ghealdan: 8.5*
Almoth: 8*
Arafel: 7.5*
Kandor: 7.5*
Non-Children Amadicia: 7*
Murandy: 6

Very interesting! If we find the civs that we previously mentioned as locks, and stick them first, then fill up til we have 14 civs...

The Aiel
Andor
The Atha'an Miere
Cairhien
Illian
Manetheren
Seanchan
Tear
Shandalle
Shara
Tuatha'an
Malkier
Manetheren
Pre-Consolidation Seanchan

I'm assuming we're disqualifying the Tuatha'an as an FLC. We might be disqualifying P-C Seanchan as well, though, I'm not sure. Doing both of those would allow us to bring in:

Mayene
Prophet Ghealdan

and that's 14. What would the next batch of, say, 6, civs be?

EDIT
I should clarify here, as I think I wasn't clear before. I'm continuing on past the 14 because, interestingly, the 14 feels like it leaves out a few pretty important civs. Not counting P-C Seanchan, the one's that feel conspicuously absent from this original 14 are Shienar, Amadicia, and Altara.
/EDIT

Shienar
Children Amadicia
The Isle of Madmen/Land of the Madmen
The Two Rivers
Aramaelle
Aridhol

If we disqualify The Isle of MM and The Two Rivers, which we might, that brings in

The Shaido Aiel
Tarabon

...if we disqualify The Shaido Aiel, that brings in...

Altara

So the list of the "top 20" FLC candidates is, according to this exercise:

The Aiel
Andor
The Atha'an Miere
Cairhien
Illian
Manetheren
Seanchan
Tear
Shandalle
Shara
Malkier
Manetheren
Mayene
Prophet Ghealdan
Shienar
Children Amadicia
Aramaelle
Aridhol
Tarabon
Altara
(Pre-Consolidation Seanchan)
(Aldeshar)

This is very interesting. I think virtually all of those civs are ones I feel pretty good about having in there, and would feel somewhat unsettled about cutting. The exceptions could be Aramaelle and Aridhol, just because they aren't as prominent in my mind (though need to be there for other reasons!) and Tarabon, maybe Altara which I could see being borderline, as is the case with Mayene.

I'd also suggest we might consider re-adding Pre-Consolidation Seanchan there for previously-stated reasons. Also, Aldeshar might be worth considering for its Placement.

EDIT
Saldaea and Arad Doman appear to me to only "popular" civs that doesn't make the cut - in other words, the modern ones significant to the story, that aren't totally minor (Arafel, Murandy, etc.) /EDIT

So that's a list of 20-ish civs. honestly, I know we're unlikely to include all of them as FLCS, but as mentioned previously, we might want to consider *designing* them. and seeing what happens. Once we get the list somewhat stable, we can dig deeper and see what start biases, potential VCs, etc. pop - see if things are at all balance (which will likely help us determine the *actual* final list.

What do you think of the list? What do you think of the process? Next steps?

 

[S3rgeus]

I'm going to jump in with a quick post!

Oh shoot, should probably address this stuff now.

Eh, I don't think we need it, and consequently, I'm not sure we want it, either. Prestige seems to work much like Tourism, which works fine in the late game, by my estimation. We can leave it as one, at least for now.

I'll leave them all as "Prestige 1," instead of going in and removing the "1," partially because I don't want to deal with the hassle, and partially because... no, that's the only reason.

Ok, sounds good to me! No second Prestige building (yet).

OK,let's recap some civs! And this'll be where I stop today.

Just checking, is there more to come after this? It looks like there's still one more of my previous posts left unreplied at the moment (though it doesn't contain many decisions). I've written some of my replies to your earlier ones, but won't post until you're finished!

 

[counterpoint]

I'm going to jump in with a quick post!



Ok, sounds good to me! No second Prestige building (yet).



Just checking, is there more to come after this? It looks like there's still one more of my previous posts left unreplied at the moment (though it doesn't contain many decisions). I've written some of my replies to your earlier ones, but won't post until you're finished!

Yep! One more coming, hopefully today!

 

[counterpoint]

all right! Back for the finale - thanks for the patience!

I think it could definitely help us to explore specific uniques as a way of narrowing down which civs are FLCs, if we're otherwise undecided. Those that don't make the cut at this point are likely to be ones we want to work on for post-release, as you mention here. I don't think we really need to set out to design the uniques for the civs we plan to have as an expansion yet, until we get a better idea of how the systems play together.

Yeah, as I said before, I don't think it's such a bad thing to "roughly" design some number of civs beyond what we realistically plan to launch with.

Specifically, I can foresee the following pattern of events looking somewhat like:

1) decide on major issues (LB, # of uniques, etc.)
2) agree on which civs to work with (whether as limited FLC-guarantee only civs, or somewhat expanded beyond that, as I've proposed)
3) agree on and compare "big picture" considerations for balance (VC spread, era spread, start bias spread, etc.), adjust list if need be, adjust civ traits if need be (stretch flavor, etc.)
4) do first pass brainstorm, flavor-centric Unique dump for civs, including possible UU's (but no details on what they actually are), possible UB's or UI's (again, no details, just broad flavor), and "thematic" or broad UA ideas (e.g. "faith through conquering cities" or "better governor yields", etc.).
5) re-evaluate and re-align #3.
6) from there, choose which civs to focus on immediately, and dive in with more detail - decide on UA and broad strokes of other uniques (e.g. "melee 3 replacement with extra movement), delve into Leader and other such things
7) "final" steps - likely limited to the list of "true" FLCs - actual "numbers" about Uniques (combat strength, yields, etc.), list of cities, other flavor

What do you think?

I think we should go case by case, like Firaxis did, since that seems like it will give us the most variety of civs to choose from. I think in some cases, we'll have strong flavor that guides us a certain direction, and that may determine which part of the uniques we design first (UA vs UU/UB/UI). I also figure that once we've got an overall plan for where we want the civs to go from the sections above, then we'll want to approach each civ holistically. So, rather than make all of the non-UA uniques and then do a UA pass, I'd say dive in on The Aiel, Andor, etc. individually (in parallel), seeing which part of the uniques achieves the overall design goals for that civ best.

I agree. Let's do them case-by case. That's why, above, I suggest that we do a "rough" of all the civs, providing a few general options, before we truly dive in on any one civ's unique - so, in essence, do it on a case-by-case basis, but while able to consider the whole as well.

I have a gut feeling that tending towards well synergized uniques will be appreciated, since it makes the civ more cohesive to play. It has more of a known game plan. It could be said that that means most games with a specific civ will feel very similar, but the general impression I've gotten from BNW is that fans quite like the exotic civs with specific playstyles, like Venice.

I agree. I think with 3 uniques (if we do that), we have room to diverge a little bit here, but yes - synergize when possible. It doesn't have to be super-direct (something like Korea's "build science with UA and defend yourself in early game with UU's is a good example of indirect synergy), but something like the disparate uniques of Byzantium isn't idea.

Interesting that war has come up as the highest proportion again. As you've said, I don't think we want to reproduce this distribution, but it's certainly something to consider. It seems like the main victory conditions are fairly good at supporting many competing civs. War becomes interesting with more powerful players, and many players focusing on war tend to eliminate each other early. Diplo players can compete on CSes, even ending up capturing and liberating them to skew votes. Culture players are in direct competition with each other - both in their Tourism vs Culture and trying to find all of the GWs.

I feel like it's the mechanics-specific civs that we don't want to end up doubling up on. In all of the above cases, the civ doing overall the best will tend to prevail. But in the mechanics-specific cases, there can be difficulties like the max religion count preventing a late-entry from making a difference.

I think we don't need to agonize over this, so I'll say in general I'd think I'd like to preserve balance and not go overboard on sciency stuff and diplo stuff. You're right that those civs just compete against each other, but I'd still say a game full of epic diplo or culture civs would be pretty annoying...

Agreed on mechanics-specific ones.

Agreed, for things like Paths, we want to avoid the likelihood of oversaturating a mechanic that has hard limits (max Paths per game). Thankfully in this case, I don't think we'll have very many Path-focusing civs. And given the distributions I mentioned in my last post, if we have a fairly even representation of mechanics across 14 civs, then we'll have very few that share focuses with one another.

agreed, whether we go with 14 or boost it to 18-20 as I've been considering.

I remember this! Indeed, it's worth reconsidering now. Mostly, do we think that having three uniques will serve us well?

Some advantages are:

• More variety
• More room for civs to specialize effectively
• More flavor captured from the books

Some disadvantages are:

• More difficult to balance
• Risks diluting flavor by stretching some civs to have more uniques than we have good sources for

There would definitely be flexibility in a three unique system to allow for civs with 3 UBs; 2 UBs, 1 UU; 1 UU, 1 UB, and 1 UI. Any combination that was appropriate for the civ.

This is actually a pretty big decision, for obvious reasons, and it's been somewhat "given" for awhile that we'll do three uniques... Probably we should consider this rather careful.

I agree with your lists here, though I'd add one disadvantage (though it's possible that it's just a corollary to the balance one): the relationship of civs to eras might get complicated. For instance, we could create a situation rather easily where a civ has a unique "active" in essentially all parts of the game (an early UB, mid UU, and late UU). Probably this isn't the best idea. I know some of this will correct itself, considering the era-limits of most (though not all civs), but we might want to create a kind of rough policy that a civ's three UU's should possibly only "cover" a maximum of two segments of the game (if not actual eras). I suppose what I'm trying to prevent is situations where a civ is "unique" for the entire game. On the other hand, we should probably also try not to double-up in the same specific era (two UUs simultaneously in one civ, etc.). In other words, even if we add a 3rd Unique for each civ, we might benefit from keeping the overal "dominant time" of a given civ roughly the same (neither spread out much further, nor concentrated too much). Thoughts?

In general, I'd say doing three uniques carries with it one primary benefit: it's "cooler" and more fun. However, it complicates stuff a bit. For me, that's the fundamental decision.

So, where do I land? I suppose I like the idea of doing three uniques, though it makes me slightly nervous. I suppose we could make a committment to have one of the uniques be "weaker" than a typical BNW unique (or, depending on how things work out, this could be a UA). I guess, while I like the fun and variety of three uniques, I don't really want to increase a civ's "power" all that much in an absolute sense. This'll majorly favor human players of course. Or if we did, do it in some simple, systematized way that doesn't eff up the game too much.

I suppose I'm fine with making the 3 uniques infinitely flexible, and not limited to 2 UUs, and 1 UB/UI. I'm guessing that 2 UU's will be the most common result, though.

As you mention later, it seems that UIs are all "sourced" from the UB pool. However, I don't think that we necessarily need to follow that exact guideline. UIs were not present in vanilla and were only introduced in DLC. They're also functionally quite different from other uniques (they don't replace an existing Improvement, they just add a new one for that civ, unlike UUs and UBs).

I would definitely go for including some UIs, since they're quite interesting for the player and have the potential (like the Feitoria) to do quite interesting and unusual things that can capture civ flavor quite well.

OK, I'm in agreement. I doubt will have too many of these - frankly, I think we might have to kind of "force" the flavor into making these fit, so I doubt we'll feel compelled/inspired to have too many of them. Also agreed that they don't have to be sourced from the UBs, though I suppose we'll have to be very conscious of things if we source it from a UU - the civ might end up rather yield-heavy at that point.

UGs (Unique Governors) sound awesome, and the suggestion to try it on Hawkwing sounds like a really good one that lines up with that flavor well.

Cool. It may end up that we don't have a literal UG though - it may be the most elegant to simply have such a thing be a factor of a UA, or even a UB.

Overall, I think we should try to include these where we can and they're appropriate. I'm not sure if we want to establish a "baseline" by not using these kinds of strange uniques everywhere? Part of me thinks that will make the ones we do have feel more special to the player, but I also wonder if players would like it more if the uniques were all splashy/showy. Not necessarily more powerful, but just unusual and interesting, like these.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. If you're saying we should keep these kinds of things relatively rare, then I agree.

It certainly seems like there are elements of flavor that tilt us in this direction. And this also plays quite well into the 3 uniques set up, since we could have more "normal" uniques without sacrificing these ones. We would likely wanr exotic mechanical uniques to be quite synergized with the rest of the civ's uniques (playing into what we're discussing above).

agreed

UU Shadowspawn could be very interesting, but would necessarily be for a Shadow-intended LB civ, right? Only Shadow players ever control Shadowspawn units, so we wouldn't be able to supply this unique as a replacement otherwise. I would be fine with doing that, but you seemed to suggest that we would want to avoid it in your earlier posts.

You're correct that it would be pretty interesting. I'm of course largely against actually doing it (outside of a scenario). And the flavor of the books doesn't justify it so much.

This is definitely something we'll need to be aware of. Like you mention, we can "backport" some uniques like Firaxis did with the Native American civilizations, making them available in earlier eras than the one they're present in the books, presumably due to a flavorful lack of requirement for technological advancement in that particular unique. (The Aiel Maidens of the Spear are the result of a cultural process at the time of the books, rather than emerging because the equipment they use has recently been invented, and so could exist in earlier timeframes.)

I think we'll actually have the avantage of not having to break flavor too much to accomplish this, either. We don't, for example, know that the Maidens are only endemic to the "modern" era - they may very well have existed way earlier. While civ had to "Break" flavor (e.g. the Mayan UUs existing thousands of years before the mayans), it seems to me that most of the prime candidates for such things (Aiel (era 1?), Shara (era 1?), The Sea Folk (unclear, era 3?), P-C Seanchan (era 1?), even regular Seanchan (era 4?), are also civs that did in fact exist way earlier in the timeline - and all the others exist essentially as of era 5. The only real flavor consequence is having book-era units no longer relevant during the LB (e.g. Mayener Winged Guards not fighting for the forces of the Light because they've been obsolete since era 6). This is likely acceptable, though.

I think part of our civ selection process should make this a bit easier, since we're actively selecting civs in order to have a more diverse era layout. However, we'll still probably end up modern-heavy, since that's the era of the books.

I think there are a few ways to deal with this. As you mention later, UBs in BNW don't appear toward the end of the tree, presumably because having them earlier in the tree allows them to accrue advantage over the course of the game. I think I've mentioned elsewhere that if we design our UBs to have immediate impactful effects, then we can afford to have them present later in the game. (So their value isn't dependent on a boosted yield or some turn-by-turn equivalent.) This gives us more flexibility for late-game civs that aren't UU-heavy.

I think that we'll want to see where we end up with civ distribution as well, before we can accurately address this.

Agreed. Regarding UB's, also agreed - it might simply be a matter of making their late-game effects greater (higher yields), or creating some sort of alternate functionality/effect.

I think we shouldn't feel like we need to make the uniques of a single civ close to one another on the tree, unless the mechanics of those uniques rely on each other. (Two units that give each other bonuses should obviously be placed so they are fielded at the same time.) This gives us more room to tweak the placement of each unique to avoid the modern-heavy bias.

I'd say the overall process should still be flavor led, but with mechanical considerations for distribution, since that will be a bigger problem for us than it was in BNW.

It's worth mentioning that BNW's mechanics nicely slot in with the fact that Firaxis usually don't want to include civs with modern leaders (presumably to avoid being political about it).

I generally agree, though i'd caution us to prevent the kind of uber-dominance I mentioned above (whether by *always* having an active unique, or by having *all* of them in *one* era). I'd say in general we should try to stay roughly BNW-like. I think the flavor will probably do that for us. There are only a few civs that'll present us with any real opportunity for a super-wide spread anyways.

Looking at a lot of these, I definitely get the impression that Firaxis' civ design process is flavor led, which is what I'm thinking would be a good call for ours as well. Not abandoning mechanical considerations obviously, but the "feel" of the civs is one of the most important parts of someone wanting to invest many hours in playing through the game with them.

The fact that many of the civs only existed for part of the tech tree likely also contributes to the clustering of uniques. Above, I mentioned I don't think we should feel we have to try to keep uniques close together (within 3 eras or any such limit), and it looks like we'll end up with a clustering due to the flavor anyway. Most civs will tend to unlock uniques around the time of the tech tree in which they existed in the books timeline.

Fine with this. I'd say we start off rough and flavor led on this, and then (midway through the list of steps I outlined above), we can consider things against each other and tweak as needed.

This is very interesting. I'd be inclined to say we should try this and have uniques for some era-defining units. I'd say Firaxis has done it a little, like with the Korean Turtle Ship replacing the Caravel, and actually changing how Korea interacts with the sea, compared to other civs, that way.

I think the lack of a well defined distribution is a byproduct of the process for Firaxis being flavor led. They've had some overall mechanical considerations, which has resulted in the uniques being brought more towards the start of the tree. I think this seems like a good process for us too.

Agreed. I do like the Turtle ship as an example - it's based on the caravel, but by no means is it a "super caravel" (it can't enter oceans) - rather, it's an alternate. I'd prefer this kind of thing than to creating super artillery and other such "era-defining unit, but better!" situations.

This point has come up a few times elsewhere, and it's definitely an important one. I think we'll want to see what we end up with in terms of civ distribution and backportable uniques, and whether an overall tendency towards the end of the tree is something we then need to adjust for explicitly, or if our previous selection processes had already compensated for it.

The point about modern units existing before the events of the books is also a key one that will help with backporting. There are obviously limits, but depending on how specific we get in terms of books-characters-callouts in the uniques, then many of them seem like they should be shiftable in this way.

agreed. This has come up elsewhere and should be covered by this point!

As I mention above, I'd say the small span is likely flavor driven by the presence of specific civs during certain parts of the tree.

And throwing more UUs towards the end of the tree and tilting Domination that direction may not be a bad thing. Domination sticks out as one of the victory types that can be achieved the fastest in BNW, whereas others require significantly more tech tree investment. It seems like the main difference there for any given game is a player's propensity to try to win via Domination, rather than their ability to do so. So slowing Domination down seems like it will bring it more in line with the other victories. Even after doing that, given how the Domination victory interacts with player count, I'd say it will still often be one of the most achievable quickly on smaller map sizes.

You're suggesting we potentially add more UUs later in the tree, right? I'm open to this. Not sure where I stand on many of them being present during the literal LB, though (see way above).

As I mentioned above, I'd be inclined to make this process flavor led, so I don't think a desired spread for UUs is something we want to set out with at the beginning. I think we'll want to address obvious imbalances in where the flavor takes us, after we've assessed where that is.

I would like to see more diversity in the UU spread - not leaning so much on Melee or Mounted units, but again, it will depend on where the flavor takes us.

I understand and agree, but I have to say that I don't think the WoT flavor is going to do us many favors on spreading out UU types - not counting the channelers, I suspect we'll see a lot of melee and mounted units. Hopefully we find some room for exceptions.

I've sort of covered this above, but I think we can make mechanical tweaks to how some UBs work in order to make them still relevant when they unlock in the final few eras. By giving them more immediate effects, rather than yield-bonus payoffs, they can remain relevant in the late game.

yup.

The same sort of thing with deciding general spread here. I think leaning warlike in general might serve us well, since quite a few of our new mechanics require some military presence, particularly the systems involved with and leading up to the LB victory condition. This seems to be the spread that BNW has already.

hmmm... not quite sure what you mean about "leaning warlike" with UB's. You mean put in more XP and defense related UBs in the later parts of the game?

Uniques being generally early game probably leads on from most of them being yields-driven, where earlier availability makes them more useful. I'd say, like I've said with UBs, more instantaneous effects can make any type of unique more relevant in the late game. I'm generally in agreement that having fewer UIs than UUs or UBs overall sounds like a good plan. Mostly because it makes them stand out more, and given that they don't replace anything from the base game, they're inherently quite powerful.

agreed.

And there we go! I feel like in this last section, I've been giving a lot more general vague answers, because the decisions here will be very much driven by the decisions from earlier on in the process. Hopefully you think that's an acceptable way to approach this part of it! Quite a bit of the info here has also affected my suggestions earlier on, which has left me with less specific to say in this part!

I'm particularly interested to hear your opinions on LB focused civs and flavor led uniques, since those two things seem to be the biggest things that I'm saying in my responses that are different from the content of the framing post.

And again, thank you for going through and putting all of this together! We've got a great start on this part of the mod now, and it's one of the parts that's most visible to players!

great! Finally done! My answers above are generally pretty fricken bland, though I think there are a few key things to discuss.

Your turn!

 

[S3rgeus]

Epic delays! Apologies that it's taking me so long, and unfortunately I won't be able to continue yet. I've written a big chunk of posts but I'll post them together once I've finished the part I'm currently writing. I haven't had any time to sit down and post this past week! I'll try to over the next few days, but they're going to be really hectic as well. At absolute latest, I'll be able to write and post on the coming Sunday/Monday.

 

[S3rgeus]

At last, I have returned! I've been traveling far and wide the last three weeks, hence the dismal reply times on my part. But now I'm home again and all should go back to normal!

heck, I'm 600-something hours into BNW, and still haven't tried several of the civs.

Same, I'm going through for all the achievements! Only 3 leaders left from Vanilla! (I haven't been playing them in order.)

I think you are probably right that we could be ok with 14 or even lower (as you propose later). However, I'm not 100% sold that we wouldn't be better off shooting for 14-18 nonetheless (even if every one doesn't quite make the FLC cut. Simply, when looking through the ones we both seem to like, it seems like we're ending up with more than ten! more on this later (and later [and later])!

Oh, I see what you mean here, and totally agree. As will come up later, I'm totally fine with us designing more than 14 in an effort to decide which civs should be FLCs. (Or if we decide to go with more than 14 FLCs, designing more than that number to help the decision equally works.) My main thing about this process is I think we should only go ahead with designing civs now if we're considering them as FLCs. Once we've decided a specific civ won't be an FLC, then I'd say we can drop the design for it to be picked up again at a later date.

my point was that Vanilla civ didn't have to "cover" as many different kinds of mechanics. They didn't need to have a Religion civ, or a Theming-Bonus civ, and stuff like that. We, arguably, should have such things, in addition to ones that make use of our mechanics, and things might "fill up" sooner than they did for Vanilla civ.

Ah, I see! Very good point, totally true.

Yes, I agree. Design isn't that crazy, balancing might be crazy. I suppose this might be why I'm leaning somewhat towards erring on the side of "creating" more civs, and hoping we can get them all balanced, but possibly demoting some to "expansion" if we can't, or if it seems unreasonable to really try. In other words, possibly "waste" some more time fleshing out civs that may or may not be true FLCs at this time (or soon, at least), up to and including designing "specifics", because, as you say, it's not actually that much time, relatively to all the other stuff.

Hopefully we'd get them all in, but if balancing turns into a clusterf&*$, we can demote the ones that deserve it. After all, it does feel, at this juncture, somewhat arbitrary, us deciding on some of the "borderline" civs (the Arad Domans and Tarabons of the world). We could spend some time on one of those civs and find that we come up with really fun-seeming uniques and such, and later decide it should be an FLC (at the expense of someone else, or perhaps in addition).

So, in short, while you might be accurate in figuring ten civs or so is the "real" FLC number, a solid argument could be made that we should design 18 of them, and "see what happens."

Totally agree, feeding into what I mention above, that designing more civs than we're targeting for FLCs makes a lot of sense as a mechanism for deciding which civs will actually be FLCs.

I'm a bit confused about balancing here though - it would seem to me that balancing isn't something that's part of the design phase we're in now? We will make a general pass at balance here from subjective assessments, but the time consuming stuff I was talking about was actually playing games with these civs implemented in the game and looking for ways that they might be unexpectedly powerful or unexpectedly underwhelming. I don't think we want to get to that stage with civs that we aren't pretty much locked in for FLC-ness.

historical importance
I see your point, but in my head this might be more like a 5 (that's somewhat splitting hairs, of course). The reason I see this as more important is that historicity is part of what civ feel like civ. The anachronisms, and such. the feeling like your in your civ's "home time" (e.g. playing as Manetheren during the Era of Nations, etc.).

Right, I see what you mean here. I think we're on the same page, I was mainly considering some of the stuff you mention here as a part of prominence, rather than history.

flavor availability
I think you found out for yourself in visiting Murandy later in your posts that yes, it's pretty darn low on flavor.

It's still got some stuff! That's all relative ranking after all.

I think I'd actually be inclined to rate this one as slightly lower in priority as you have here. Truthfully, I see it as a kind of boolean thing: is there a bare minimum of flavor to create the civ (enough for a few uniques, a leader, some cities [though the latter will be a problem for virtually all civs])? No? Then this is priority 1, and that civ gets axed outright. Yes? OK, then this actually isn't all that important (like a 5 or something). Civs like the Seanchan have way too much flavor. I'm guessing we'll find, in general, most civs - even the obscure ones - will have juuust enough flavor to make feel like a real civ. Of course, it's easier if we have a bunch of it, easier for us, I mean, but that's not a reason to include or disqualify a civ.

Yeah, I think we're basically on the same page here too. If it's a problem, then it will completely discount a civ, but otherwise it isn't really a concern.

eras
lots more said on this later, but i agree with your assessment here.

I'll say now, though it'll come up again: the major "hole" does seem to be the Free Years (eras 3-4). There are a few 10 Nations civs that'll give us some ammo, I think. The Hawkwing era civs are much harder. (actually, come to think of it, era ONE is probably the biggest hole, though we'll probably be able to stretch the Nations civs to that era).

It'll be interesting to see a full tally of the civs we're considering below (I will try to do that if I remember!). It seems like Hawkwing ate of the flavor in the FY period!

Victory conditions
I think this is actually a really big, high priority, from a design perspective... but I don't think it's a huge priority in civ-selection, since most of these are flexible, in VCs.

Yeah, I'd say we'll want to tend towards making civs follow the VC that makes most sense flavorfully for them, wherever possible.

craziness
I see your points. You're very correct that this is simply a case-by-case thing. Truly, it's a Priority 9 in most cases... except for in problem cases, where it's a Priority 1!

It's all about the Drapers!

starting biases
I agree with your assessment, mostly. I do think, as you noted later, that it's not realistic for us to worry about it too much at this stage. It seems better to pick our general group of FLCs and then see, once we have, what the start-bias "spread" looks like (and then, presumably, either "force" some different biases, axe a civ, or else shrug and move on). It seems absurd to use the biases in our choices much earlier than that.

Sounds like a good plan!

true start locations
I actually don't quite get all of your points here. Nonetheless, I agree that this isn't so important.

I was mainly saying that if we do a true start locations map, then it would be unlikely we'd be in a situation where specific civ selections would make laying that map out impossible. And true start locations are usually done as part of a scenario, so I think we'd mainly want to consider that when designing the scenario itself.

Ideology
Interesting. Are you sure? If you look at specific civ's write-ups on the wiki, it lists a "Preferred Ideology." Is that kind of mumbo-jumbo, then, and not actually a "thing"?

In any case, I'm fine doing whatever bnw does.

Yeah, that appears to be mumbo-jumbo! Looking at the code, I don't see anywhere that takes any civ-specific biases into account. Putmalk describes how the AI decides which Ideology to pick here.

 

[S3rgeus]

yeah,more on this later, but Tarabon is likely to be one of the "swing" civs, that may or may not make the FLC cut. I'm not willing to dismiss them outright - we need to line things up properly first - but they're likely to be in the "bubble." Of course, this depends on how many civs we design (whether its a conservative number, eg 10, or a more liberal one, eg 18, as discussed above).

Agreed, I'm happy to go into detail on them as a part of the process for deciding if we want to FLC them or not.

To address your final question first: I'd say no, we shouldn't treat Amadicia separately and dive into it in more detail now. We should dive in to the proper amount of detail given where we finally decide it "stands" in terms of FLC consideration. It's looking (from your later posts) like it's way more likely that we will include it as a Children-linked civ (if we include it at all), but I'm happy juggling both options for the time being until we rule one out. I'm not totally sold that we should totally flesh out both options - make uniques and whatnot - for both options before we decide, but I'm willing to if you want.

I think you're right that there's also a way to split the difference here - have uniques that nod to the children without necessarily being "Whitecloak" units.

Sounds good, making them part of the same flow as everything else is a good call.

Regarding Pedron Niall and the popularity contests, I'll merely forewarn you that I'm going to be pushing for us to be broad and outside-of-the-box in our Leaders consideration. I think part of making it feel like civ may be us embracing the many eras of these civs, and not merely focusing on the ones we meet in the books. It's true that those are more well-known to the player, and thus feel more familiar to people - and thus are a part of the "point" of this mod - but at the same time, a good number of them aren't very "good" rulers, or have very important other rulers in their prior history (also, leaders further back might help us "justify" uniques that aren't in the late-game, which we may have to do for mechanical reasons anyways). This is something to bring back up way later, but I'm probably going to suggest that we at least consider, and discuss, 2-3 leaders for each civ, hopefully spanning many eras.

Sure, it's definitely worth considering more leaders! I'd say my opinion of the importance of the modern leaders is generally case-by-case. Some I'm not too pushed about who we choose, as long as the one we do choose is at least easily findable, others I'm super into the books-choice!

The TR never really came up again, so I'm not sure if your opinion of this changes at all.

I definitely see your point here, though I suspect there is absolutely a subset of fans that would prefer we do have the TR as their own civ. I think I'm inclined to agree with you, though truthfully, I'm not sure whether Andor or Maneth is the better place for their flavor to end up (e.g., Longbowman, etc.). Probably Manny, since we have a lot, lot for Andor. Should we continue to investigate and consider them in the specific way?...

I suppose I should, here, just in case, since, as you note, bouncing it back to you, and then back to me, takes forever. And, it's better to be thorough and at least consider all our options. So....

The Two Rivers
Primary: Cultural or Diplomatic
Secondary: Cultural or Diplomatic
Notes: I can see Domination, in theory, because of Perrin Goldeneyes, etc, but I see this as a much more "Defensive" civ, moreso than even the Borderlanders, perhaps. So, I imagine them as more of an economic or cultural institution (not sure which). Science feels a little "eh" for them, flavor-wise.

Size: Probably Tall, though this is tricky, as they have only small settlements... but there aren't many of them
Starting Bias: Rivers! If not... near mountains? or nothing at all

Flavor Bits:
[see flavor bits for Andor and Manetheren]
Some City Names: Emonds Field, Taren Ferrey. Deven Rode. Watch Hill
Leader: Probably Perrin Goldeneyes - if we aren't pulling from that era, we're probably not including them at all!

The Two Rivers
Prominence: Probably a 4 - Knocked down a bit because it's not a *real* civ. But obviously one of the most prominent regions in the book. In fact, truly, there could be two scores for this one - a 5, or a 1 - depending on your perspective
Flavor: 4 - A fair bit of flavor to draw on, including distinct stuff from Andor. However, using said flavor may also somewhat gimp our flavor for Manetheren.
Mechanics: 2 - Dodges a 1 simply because of the potential interest of "defensive" Uniques and such. Nothing much here.
Placement: 2 - dodges a 1 simply because of the physical thing: a "river civ," if such is possible. Otherwise, modern and landlocked - not very useful.

Minor spelling: Emond's Field, Taren Ferry, and Deven Ride

Otherwise I agree, there will definitely be some fans who want to see Two Rivers as a civ. I'm still in a very similar place to where I mentioned last time, where I don't really think Two Rivers should be an FLC. I wouldn't be inclined to specifically re-distribute its flavor (like longbows) to any other civ, because that does feel more about Two Rivers than those civs, who, in Andor and Manetheren's cases, have other flavor that's very much about them we could use instead.

We could totally do a rivers or mountains bias, which I detailed a bit more in one of my later posts last time.

I agree on Culture as a primary. LB could be a possible secondary (more on the LB in general later), riffing on the importance of the main characters somehow (particularly since none of the other victory conditions seem to fit that well).

It does still feel to me that Two Rivers is like the Shaido, in that they feel more like a scenario civ than a main game civ. (Rise of Two Rivers, where you rebel against Andor via some culture-y-ish mechanics, "events" at certain times that call out to the main characters making the place more famous, etc.) I'm happy to explore them further for now, but it doesn't seem to me like they'll particularly fill a specific mechanical niche for us. And if we're including mostly for flavor reasons, I'd say all of the above about not-complete-civ-ness counteracts that.

EDIT: Scores!

Two Rivers
Prominence: 4 - Agreed, definitely recognizable, but docked a point for not quite being a civ 95%.
Flavor: 3 - I think there's some unique stuff that makes it stand out from both Andor and Manetheren.
Mechanics: 1 - River start bias is new and weird, but it doesn't actually change very much for the player.
Placement: 3 - This could be interesting if we pitch it as a very late game civ, since it "emerges" around the time of the books, but that does present mechanical challenges.

END EDIT

very much agreed. If we do do this, though, I'd want to make sure it's mechanically distinct from Venice - no-settlers-but-buying--CSs-with-a-GP isn't a good idea.

Totally agree. In general I'd say we don't want to have any of the BNW UAs recur directly in any of our civs.

Hmmm... I actually think differently, though only slightly. Neither are a "lock" for FLC, and both are "fringe" at best. However, the thing about Arad Doman is, even though it does come up a few times, it feels somewhat flavorless. True, Ituralde is from there, and does stuff there, but there's nothing distinctly "domani" about him, and isn't a real Domani "feel" to the stuff that's set there. I'd say the only Domani flavor that really permeates the books as a whole is the whole "tight dresses" and "seduction" thing.

For Saldaea, I find this slightly different. True, we never see Saldaea, but everything we see about Saldaea - namely Faile and Davram and Tenobia (and Faile's mom) are sort of "dripping" with Saldaea-ness, such that the land feels more like a "character" in the world, moreso than A.D. and Tarabon even, I'd say. You know, "and Faile did such and such, which was a thing that Saldaean women did, and then Perrin did so and so, which was shocking to her, because Saldaean men don't do that, and them Davram Bashere, as was the custom for Saldaeans rallied his soldiers with this and that." You know, it's almost kind of uncomfortable... like when one's grandpa needlessly points out somebody's race in a conversation during which it matters not at all....

Anyways, a subtle, but noteworthy distinction.

A definite distinction, but I don't think that direct comparison captures what drives my feeling on these two comparatively.

Generally, Arad Doman exists as its own country that does its own stuff in the books. As you've said, the characters from there don't drip with specifics about their culture, which to me has meant that we hear more about it as a nation than as just a set of characteristics of its people.

Saldaea, I wouldn't be inclined to FLC, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Arad Doman. It's mainly because, given the civ counts we're discussing and how we want to dole out victories/mechanics, two Borderlander civs as FLCs feel a bit redundant to me, and of the Borderlanders, Shienar would easily be my preference.

I'm happy to take both of these on as FLC candidates for the moment.

In agreement. This comes up later, but I do think that it would feel a bit "off" to include them as an FLC. Whether they're post-launch, or simply only in scenarios, is a different matter that can be settled elsewhere.

Cool, it sounds like we're eliminating the Shaido then. More detail when you do the full list later!

hmm... for me Aridhol using its Logothiessence isn't quite as easy to pull of as the Children-Amadician or Dragonsworn-Ghealdianin thing. Part of that is the shadow-lean of it all, which I find problematic - which I'll bring up later in much detail. But the other part of it is that there's nothing Logothistic about Aridhol that would be *good* for Aridhol. Like, have their UA be "gets consumed by corruption and the player loses" or something....

I don't know, this one will be discussed later, but if we include Aridhol, I'd think its abilities would have to be only barely tangentially related to SL.

"Where the Shadow Waits" is certainly flavorful, but I don't think is likely to work. First of all, Shadar Logoth literally means "Where the Shadow waits," which makes the whole connection really, really too close for me. Maybe we can come up with a way to make that work, but it could be problematic.

Essentially, if we want Aridhol to be that civ, I think we shouldn't have SL as a CS. If we wanted a reality where mashadar and all that craziness was attached to a civ in actually, I could see Aridhol being the logical extension. But I don't think we do want that.

I see what you mean here, but I definitely wouldn't want to count them out at this stage. I'd like to see what we can do in these design stages with them, because I totally think that there are versions of Aridhol that don't mechanically step on Shadar Logoth's toes. There will be ways to wink and nod at it, include a recognizable civ from an underserved time period, and not duplicate the functionality of the Logoth city-state stuff (which, at this point, I'd say we definitely need to keep, given its uses elsewhere!).

I don't see it as a shame not to use Alliandre as a leader. True, she's a memorable character, but... as a sworn lady to Perrin and Faile, which isn't exactly ruler-worthy. That's like having the Vichy government of France be the leader of France in BNW (though not quite as bad). Also, by all accounts she must have been a pretty lousy leader to have let things get so bad in her country. In any case, to be decided later!

This will probably come up a lot when we're discussing leaders, which you mention above, because I definitely see this as a really big shame!

In any case, I'd say that a prophet-related Ghealdan doesn't *have* to actually mean the Leader is The Prophet himself. We could have abilities that are related to the fact that Ghealdan's people are, for some reason, fanatical about stuff, and have a cooperative relationship with the dragonworn (who are, technically, "bad guys" in our game). We could probably make it work, regardless of who the leader is.

I'm not so sure that Ghealdan should be post launch - for me it's still very much in contention for the top list. The reason for this is that we may find it an excellent opportunity to use some special mechanics (especially Paths or Alignment), which won't always be easy to do.

Not having to use Masema as the leader, even if we do have Prophet-related stuff, is a good point.

I see what you mean about Prophet Ghealdan being useful in how it connects with Paths, though would we want to have more than one FLC that does that? If we want to stick with just the one, Amadicia would be the one I'd go for.

I know that may seem somewhat in contradiction to what I said above on Aridhol. To me there's a big difference between Ghealdan's fate (or Amadicia's) and Aridhols - especially considering the fact that the CS->ShLogoth thing is already happening elsewhere in the game.

I definitely see the big flavor difference here - in both Ghealdan and Amadicia's cases there is a lot more distinct flavor of them as countries from the thing that "took over" them. I would say the existing CS->Logoth mechanic is much less of a problem, if a problem at all though - like I mentioned above, I think there will be ways to avoid mechanical redundancy here.

Yeah, a shame. I suppose we *could* put Ishara as its leader... it's a stretch, and not a great one, but also not a terrible one.... I think the thing about this civ is that it does feel a pretty needed niche for us - FY civs. I think we could consider booting it back into the discussion. I'm not saying it's a "yes," but it's definitely worth further consideration, IMO, for this reason alone.

Aldeshar
Primary: Domination or Diplomacy or any
Secondary: any
Notes: Unclear which is best. They apparently were rather powerful militarily... though they did ultimately fall to Hawkwing. We have relatively little to go on, so any of them could probably work. Their alliance with the tower could suggest diplomacy.

Size: Probably Tall
Starting Bias: any or avoid coast

Flavor Bits:
cities: unknown, possibly Lugard. Also Whitebridge
Leader: King Joal Ramedar, stretch-consideration: Ishara Casalain
Black Fever
War of the Second Gragon - Guaire Amalasan
Alliance with Aes Sedai against Hawkwing
retaliatory treatment by Hawkwing - mercy from His wife, Tamika

Aldeshar
Prominence: 2 - noteworthy through its connection to Hawkwing and Ishara, but otherwise, probably a 1
Flavor: 1, possibly 2 - we have some historical bits, but very little in the way of things that might inspire uniques.
Mechanics: 2, possibly 1 - nothing really to go on here, despite perhaps some Tower-relations, or stand-against-a-might-empire stuff
Placement: 4 - this is where this one "wins" - FY civ ftw! Loses a point for boring geography.

I agree that it's worthy of consideration. I would totally not put Ishara as the leader though - I'd say that's way too much of a stretch. Ishara is well known as the first Queen of Andor, and the relative obscurity of Aldeshar would make that super confusing for most players.

Still, that is something that we can consider when picking leaders, if this civ makes it to that stage of the process. I'm generally happy with going forward considering Aldeshar, mostly because it fills the FY niche, as you've said.

I do worry, though, that even though it fills the FY niche, its significant obscurity will be something players immediately question, since we'll inevitably have left out some much more prevalent civs from the books era. We have good reason to do that, but I don't think many players would see it that way - they would just see the missing civ and point at Aldeshar as an example of something that could totally have been left out.

EDIT: Scores!

Prominence: 1 - "Who are these guys?"
Flavor: 1 - Not much, as you've said
Mechanics: 1 - Also doesn't seem to be much here
Placement: 5 - I'd say it's worth bumping this up to 5 seeing as our only locked FY civ is Hawkwing.

END EDIT

Almoth
I agree. I'm going to do the flavor dump below because I think this one has potential and should be considered, but I think it's very, very unlikely it'll make first cut, and actually rather far down the list for second cut also.

[note that for these dumps, I'm using the wikis, and not delving into the companion like I did before. this is out of convenience - I don't think these will get very far, but if they do, we can go back in]

Almoth (FY version, not hypothetical whitecloak nation)
Primary: any
Secondary: any
Notes: we know very little about it - not much in the way of VC's to suggest.

Size: unknown
Starting Bias: plains

Flavor Bits:
cities: unknown
leader: unknown
blue (sky) and black (earth) banner, with Tree of Life
had a branch of Avendesora
rose after Hawkwing's empire collapsed
desired-revival by Pedron Niall
Almoth plain

Almoth
Prominence 2 - a familiar name, but not a whole lot else
Flavor 1 - we know almost nothing!
Mechanics 2 - giving it a 2, generously... we know so little about it that we could kind of get away with doing anything we wanted with it, so... 2!
Placement 3 - not a 5, since it's still a NE civ. That said, it's a very early NE civ, one whose uniques could theoretically start in Era 2. So this is actually placed as a 3, maybe even a 3.5

Agreed, happy to take it forward to the next stage, but unlikely that Almoth will survive it!

EDIT: Scores!

Almoth
Prominence: 2 - As you've said, recognizable-ish name, but not the nation itself.
Flavor: 1 - Exactly as you've said.
Mechanics: 1 - We could do what we want, but I feel like this score has represented how much a civ leads us to use interesting/underused mechanics, which this civ doesn't really.
Placement: 4 - Still from a time period we don't have much of.

END EDIT

Isle of Madmen
Yeah, I think this is mostly a bad idea from a design perspective - probably shouldn't be totally bullsh^tting stuff right off the bat, eh? Still, I'm with you that it's quite awesome. It's funny, it's way low on my list as an FLC, but actually rather high on the list for a second or third round (higher than some civs that are higher on the FLC consideration scheme, even.) I'm going to tackle it in a little detail here, though, just because I think it'll be interesting to see how its "numbers" wind up.

The Isle of Madmen/Land of the Madmen[/]
Primary: any (not diplomacy)
Secondary: any (not diplo)
Notes: Totally unknown what they would be good at. That said, they are clearly hostile to outsiders, so diplo is probably out.

Size: unknown
Start Bias: coastal (there's no "island" bias or "volcano", though theoretically we could have them start near a natural wonder)

Flavor bits:
smallest continent
lots of volcanoes and icebergs
never recovered from Breaking - male channelers are usually insane

The Isle of Madmen/Land of the Madmen
Prominence - 2, I'd say. Really, functionally a 1, except I think any reader who looked at a world map or read the BWBoBA was probably really really hoping to hear more about these guys.
Flavor - 1. nothing. really
Mechanics - 4, though this is hard to rate. Sort of nothing there, but the flexibility to do weird stuff with madness (of both genders!) and natural wonders gives it some promise, for sure
Placement - 5, as far as I can tell, it's a chameleon - fits into any era, and can kind of do whatever we want in terms of game-role.

Again, happy to consider going into the next stage.

Like Almoth, I would be surprised if it survives that round, mainly because of the flavor conflict we've discussed here with omitting civs that have more information as part of the canon.

EDIT: Scores!

Prominence: 2 - Known, but not mentioned often
Flavor: 1 - Maaaaybe 2, if we consider the madness flavor itself
Mechanics: 3 - Interacting with the madness system is unique to them, and there are interesting things for us to do with that, but it's mostly conjecture.
Placement: 5 - Wherever we want

END EDIT

Pre-Consolidation Seanchan

Hmmm...., I'm thinking about this more now, and honestly, I'm starting to think it *could* be an FLC! I mean, it's kind of crazy, just like the Madmen, but unlike the Don Draper folks, we wouldn't be making up everything. We would be inventing the civ name (can't call it "Pre-Consolidation Seanchan, can we), cities, and leaders, likely, but the truth is, we have a lot of flavor to draw from, namely: Seanchan exotics. Given Sul'dam/damane and deathwatch guards (or even the bug-helmet soldiers), we could very easily do the whole Seanchan civ and not even use any of their crazy animals. These animals were, however, the forces of the "armies of the night" Luthair fought when they arrived. So we could totally use Grolm and such here, and not be stretching anything at all. Other than this, we could draw on what we know of the "hill tribes" and stuff (from Karede's so'jihn) - also, it's likely that these lands weren't unified at all before Luthair, so we could also just choose one little subregion (and maybe take it's name) and pretend we're talking just of that.

Plus, this gives us another FY civ - or even earlier, if we wished. And we could probably come up with a more unusual terrain start bias, here.

in short, I think we should continue to consider this one. It involves some squishiness, certainly, but it is also pretty cool. More viable than the Drapers.

Pre-Consolidation Seanchan (needs a better name!)
Primary: any
Secondary: any
Notes: I feel like a reasonable justification could be made for any of these, though perhaps diplo isn't a good fit.

Size: any (though if we zero-in on a small region, Tall is better)
Star Bias: any (could be arbitrarily decided by us)

Flavor Bits:
Armies of the Night - mistaken for shadowspawn
Exotics (lopar, torm, grolm, to'raken, raken)
exotics found somehow through portal stones
Kaensada hill tribes - Ajimbura's tribe. long braids
two landmasses of Seanchan - smaller is to the north
freedom (apparently) of channelers

Pre-Consolidation Seanchan
Prominence - 2, sort of prominent, in that its a part of the whole Seanchan backstory, but seeing that it doesn't have a freakin' name, and isn't discussed directly, it's pretty obscure. Could actually be a 1 if you consider the fact that we have to somewhat invent a bunch of this.
Flavor - 3, simultaneously have a bunch and have none. If we port the seanchan exotics into this, we have some good stuff to work with. If we don't.... this civ is probably a non-starter.
Mechanics - 3. It offers us the potential to use the uniques, which *might* be mechanically distinct (a UU "flier" or something), but might just be other units. Offers us the theoretical possibility of using portal stones as a part of the UU (free unit when building one, etc.), which is kind of interesting
Placement - 5, though I would accept 4, as well. Similar to The Mad Men above - flexibility with era, start bias, and overall "feel."

This is a very good point about using the Seanchan exotics for the flavor of this civ. Even if we do use one of them on the Seanchan themselves, there are still tons more to use on this civ. Taking one of the names of the civs Luthair ran into also seems like a good plan. Hopefully one that has a leader that was named!

So I'm in favor of this one going on to the next stage.

EDIT: Scores!

Prominence: 3 - Certainly better than Isle of Madmen, most fans will recognize it once they see the uniques.
Flavor: 3 - The actual books Seanchan have a lot of flavor that's shareable here, so we just need to make sure we don't take the stuff that can be used in both in the Seanchan civ.
Mechanics: 3 - UU flier is interesting. I don't remember what their affiliation is with the Portal Stones?
Placement: 4 - They're not right in the FY black hole, though could potentially fit into the AB one. Still an underserved time period.

END EDIT

Yeah, agreed in theory, though, as I've made the case above, I think that list of FLCs - the groups we continue to at least consider for first-inclusion - should be bigger than I think you want it to be.

This is mostly what I'm replying to when I mention this above! I'm totally fine with the list being bigger while we're deciding, I'm mainly just saying that once we decide against a civ being an FLC, then there's no reason to pursue them any further from then on (until we return to post-release content, obviously). However big the list needs to get for us to decide on those first 14, that's totally cool. I'd say if we're torn on a decision, then keep fleshing out until eventually some level of detail shows us which path to take.

 

[S3rgeus]

ok, this'll be a rather small quote-block that will warrant a pretty huge response... apologies.

No need to apologize for long posts, we've got tons of them!

Ok, OK, in general, I tend to disagree. I definitely wish that I was smart enough to have though to examine this in much more detail in the framing post, as it's obviously a very big topic. Truly, I simply wrote this bit of the post many, many months ago, before things had quite coalesced on other fronts, and sadly never updated it or fleshed it out more.

Having read all of the below, I think we're actually closer to agreement than may first appear, but are approaching it from very different places. We'll see in more detail below!

Some "options" first.

The way I see it, there are five ways our civs can interact with the LB on a design perspective.

...

In the cases above (with the possibly exception being the pentultimate entry), the Unique specifies a "side" in the LB, which isn't happening very much at all in the previous categories (I hope!)

Awesome, these seem like good distinctions between the different ways we could approach the LB. Thus far in the topic, when referring to things that interact specifically with the LB victory, I've been referring to Alignment and the TW as well, as related systems. (In the same way CSes are related to the Diplo victory, etc.)

Right off the bat, I should say that I'm not 100% sure on what we should do about #2 (Uniques during the LB's era). My instinct tells me that we should keep things like BNW, in general, and not have much going on int he way of civ uniques specific to the late-game (though, naturally, some earlier uniques will still be functioning at that point), as that seems to work pretty well in BNW. That said, if we decided we wanted to go with #4 (agnostic LB-related uniques), we would obviously be making exceptions to this. In BNW, there seems to have been an effort to "equalize" the civs in the late-game, which might be a way of making the earlier eras "count more" (a civ with dominant era 8 or 9 uniques would likely be very frustrating to players, who might view it as a "blue shell" of sorts. I think we should probably view all this LB-stuff with that in mind. What do you think?

This sort of jumps ahead of my more general stuff that's going to be outlined below, but I don't think having uniques in this era is something we should avoid for the LB civs (or even necessarily civs in general). I don't think the uniques always make enough of a difference to have a kind of blue shell effect (awesome description!) in the era they're unlocked in. Their advantages usually do more to affect the style of play of the user, rather than strictly outclass enemy equivalents when pitted against them.

And one of the core complaints many people have with CiV (and its predecessors) is that the endgame can be locked in for one player, but still take hours to play out. If this upsets that definite outcome, then that should make the game more interesting. The flipside of that is we do want to avoid players feeling like they did well the whole game and then got swindled at the last minute (blue shell effect!). But, as above, I don't think uniques will make that much of a difference.

In the event that I'm wrong, and they do make a big, game-changing difference, then it would seem like balancing that effect is something we can do to avoid the endgame lock-in. Either way seems like a good outcome to me.

anyways, back to the general sense of all of this. I should say that i think I disagree with your statement that we should treat the LB victory as "not different" from the other VCs. To me, it is very much different, in many ways. Notably, the LB utilizes all of the various mechanics (science, combat, etc.), and that was very purposeful in our design. So, uniques that aid any one aspect of the game should, presumably, aid the LB as well - distinguishing things from this further may not be necessary. Also, the LB just *feels* different from the other victory types. It's a team-related victory for one (by definition if you choose Light). that makes things way, way more complex than any one normal VC stream. The notion that we can paint it with the same brush as the others feels, to me, problematic.

Yes, if Shaka is in your game, you know to defend against aggression. Same with Kamehameha for culture. But that seems somewhat like a truism to me. Naturally, whatever a civ's unique does is something you need to watch out for. England? Watch out for era 4 (or 5?) naval units! Of course. The VC is just an extension of that ("watch out for a domination-push from England during Era 4 or 5"), almost intrinsic in the very presence of Uniques at all. The LB to me is so much more complex, and long-term to be somewhat like apples to Shaka's oranges. This is especially true if a civ is linked to a particular *side* in the LB.

Of course, none of the above means we can't have LB-related uniques, and that it shouldn't be treated as a Victory condition. However, I think it really warrants being treated differently, and more carefully, than the others. It's special.

I strongly believe that this shouldn't be the case. It's different in that we designed it and it's got relatively complex victory mechanics involved in it, but I don't think that should make it structurally different as a victory condition from the others.

We definitely purposefully designed the LB to involve the contributions of multiple different parts of the game, but that says to me that it's more like the other VCs, not less, and that that was our objective in doing so. None of the VCs are completely isolated from the contributions of others. Science aptitude, while clearly targeted at the Science victory, can be used to get key Culture techs early (particularly Archaeology) and get a Culture lead into a Culture victory that way. Social Policies, which are the source of major benefits for Culture players, have a bunch of Policies that help with the Diplo and Scientific victories (often directly), despite being part of the "Culture system". Each CS, whose allegiance is "a part of" the Diplo victory as the primary source of votes, also provides relevant yields for working towards the Culture victory, and units towards Domination. When Culture players are faced with opponents who also have high Culture output, then their fastest recourse is to destroy that particular civ militarily, which requires they invest in the Domination "aspects" of the game. Looping back around, Science aptitude means you'll have more advanced units than your opponents, contributing easily toward a Domination victory. Domination focus allows you to quickly capture CSes that afford your opponents key votes as well as completing many of the quests that CSes offer (particularly Barb camp ones, which yield a lot) which can facilitate a Diplo victory.

The list goes on for how all of the existing BNW victories are intertwined, and how each mechanic that is a part of the "system" for each of those victories is also useful to players on track for the other victories. This totally means to me that the LB's interconnectedness is something that makes it more like the other BNW victories, and not a special case that we should consider differently. Particularly since it does have its own unique systems (Alignment, TW, LB event itself) that are contributed to effectively by the other victory tracks, like the others do.

In terms of the Kamehameha and Shaka examples being a truism, that's basically my point. Civs with LB-focused uniques will tend to try to win the LB victory if they are in a dominant position to influence when and how it happens. (Which is part of why we've got the triggering mechanics set up so that powerful players can influence the LB's happening.) Other players reacting to this by preparing for an LB when they see a civ who's visibly focusing on the LB victory (not necessarily visibly chosen any particular Alignment - they may just be hunting all the Seals when they become available) is exactly the same kind of response that we're both talking about here to Kamehameha and Shaka trying to win their respective victories.

In terms of the actual complexity of the victory condition itself, as I touched on above, I don't think that should make it structurally different from the other VCs. That only affects the actual turn-by-turn decisions and the useful mechanics during the actual execution of that VC. And that complexity largely stems from a couple of factors: our desire to match the flavor of the books and our intent to do something recognizably different from the other VCs, but still connected to existing systems. Neither of those motivate us to make the LB a secondary victory condition.

If anything, being a secondary condition available "after" the other ones could damage its contributions to the player experience. I could see the LB being viewed as a "consolation" victory after failing to win a "normal" one, if it were balanced in such a way that players should never focus on it directly, but deal with it when it appears. This is the shiny new victory condition that we've made for the mod, and it's something that fans will want to actively try to experience, and we don't want to put roadblocks in the form of other victory conditions in front of that experience.

This is part of the problem with the Time victory condition (though not the only problem, Time is also very uninspired in terms of mechanics - someone just "wins" by having the highest number in not very accurately representative expression of civilization progress). Its existence solely as something that's solely there to act as a tiebreak before the game becomes unbalanced means that even getting to it means players have failed at their original objectives, which isn't the kind of thing we want for the LB.

By not being something that's a part of player's game plan going into the endgame, then the LB itself also risks become a serious blue shell factor (much more so than uniques placement, which we're discussing above). It comes with a lot of variables that can unseat a dominant player, and that makes me think that going into it with the intention of winning that way should be something players should be able to focus on.

Regarding the borderlanders and such, I think their fate is likely fine as long as we go with at least option #3 above. If the systems related to the LB are fair game, we shouldn't have aproblem working things in as you describe here. If we go with hands-off (#1), we might have a tricky situation, though.

Agreed, as long as we have LB-focused uniques of some kind then the Borderlanders should be safe.

OK, regarding "telegraphing" either the LB at all, or, especially, a civ's side in the LB, I do think we want to try to prevent it as much as possible. Currently, most of our mechanics support the "surprise" element of the LB - alignment units are invisible, Threads and such aren't visible to others, etc.). The flavor from the books also supports the surprise element - the last-minute decision of the Seanchan, the surprise evil-ness of Shara. Tying mechanics and flavor together, the flexibility of any civ going to any side is compelling to me, as a kind of fusion of the historical mixups of the civ series, and the infinite "restarts" of the Wheel of Time cosmology.

This is definitely the biggest thing that gives me pause when considering Alignment-specific uniques (Light-only or Shadow-only). Our efforts thus far have definitely been to make sure that a civ's intended Alignment isn't externally visible to other players throughout the course of the game until the choice when the LB itself starts.

The main thing that pulls me the other way is the specific mechanics that exist on both sides of the LB that then become impossible to create uniques for. There's a lot of very interesting and flavor-applicable design space there for us to have uniques, but we would be locking them out completely. The risk there is that these mechanics will feel too samey, because civ variety doesn't affect the way in which they work. (The LB's inherent complexity is, however, relevant at this level of consideration and reduces samey-ness through that complexity.)

You've touched on this list with the examples in option #5 above, though I would like to consider a full list of such mechanics so that we know what we're setting up for by not using them. Full list, as far as I can find/remember:

• The Dragon (bonuses while you use him, effects that make his abilities work better or worse in any situations, )
• Shadowspawn effects (UU Shadowspawn, effects that either specifically combat or power up Shadowspawn, the same kinds of things with the Forsaken)
• Most things to do with Thakan'dar
• Alignment dampening effects (things that make your Alignment change less, pushing you Neutral)
• The Dragon's Peace group treaty (conferring bonuses to yourself or other civs that are part of the treaty for a Light ability, or somehow minimizing its effects for a Shadow ability, anything that interacts with the various Light-side projects or one way trade routes)
• Interactions with Turning the Tower (helping or hindering that process, matches up to obvious sides)
• Any interactions with Black Ajah Sisters

A very convincing argument can be made for Shadowspawn-combating abilities (things that make your civ better at fighting Shadowspawn) being Alignment-agnostic, since for the majority of the game, Shadowspawn are enemies of all players. But during the LB itself, having against-Shadowspawn bonuses tilts you Light, since Shadow players make peace with the Shadowspawn civ, which largely nullifies that bonus. Other Shadow players can have Shadowspawn units, but given how they unlock, they will be much less prevalent than for Light civs, who will be fending off waves of them as a part of how the LB works.

Also, arguably, things that boost Alignment yield, even if in both directions, sort of fall into category 5, because they push the player away from playing Neutral. Avoiding this kind of effect entirely doesn't seem like something we want to do, given how core Alignment is to the LB victory itself.

I would say destroying Seals, as you mention, could potentially be category 4, since both sides need to destroy them at some point, and doing so faster helps either of them in their goal when doing so is good for them. It does tilt Shadow though, as you say, because that becomes immediately relevant when the LB starts, whereas for Light it would require them to do all of the finding/Dragoning first, where the ability doesn't help.

Another thing you mention is the Cleansing. As we discussed before, the sides of the Cleansing tend to be linked to the Alignment choices of players, though not 100%. This makes any uniques that interact with the Cleansing in a choice-specific way (for or against) inherently LB-side-specific-leaning.

Overall, this seems like a lot of mechanics for us to leave on the table as inaccessible to uniques. And it's also worth calling out that even if we go whole hog and go for category 5, "side specific bonuses", with a civ count of 14 we'll only have two, maybe three civs that interact with these systems. And not all (or even any) need to go all the way to a side specific bonus. Maybe only one has a side-specific bonus, and other(s) have ones that are useful no matter what side you pick. Maybe none of the FLCs particularly push us toward a side-specific unique and we don't have any. I think this distinct part of the decision will be up to what we want for the specific civs, and I don't think we should disallow ourselves from considering these mechanics to be a part of those civs, especially before we go through some and see what kinds of ideas we have and where the flavor takes us.

Looking through the above, I'm aware nothing specific calls out a reason to definitely include side-specific uniques, and I think that's a result of the part of the process that we're in. The motivation to include them will be a specific civ design, whose uniques are side-specific and provide the player with a fun new experience while also capturing cool, recognizable flavor from the books. We won't know what that is until we try to design that civ, which is what makes me think we don't want to take the option off the table now. Though we do want to decide now whether it's something we will consider in general, otherwise the motivation from that one civ won't overcome the structural discussion that needs to happen, which we're having now!

I'm not sure how this whole post has come together and if the sentiments of the previous two paragraph seem contradictory. Just in case, the way I see it, we want to decide now whether we will consider side-specific bonuses (or any of the levels you outlined) in general, because without that decision we'll be hamstrung in the designing of the civs about whether to include such possibilities. But we don't want to decide that we will definitely 100% have side-specific bonuses in the FLCs, since the FLCs we use may not lend themselves to that or we may have alternatives that we think are better for other reasons. So we're basically deciding whether or not side-specific bonuses are an option, is my take on it.

Telegraphing that a civ "wants" an LB (though not its specific alignment) is certainly less problematic, but I still don't love it, as it still seems not to mesh well with the "surprise" elements above. To me, the game feels like it should proceed as if everybody's trying, if possible, to win before the LB starts (which is usually not possible). Barring that, you plan for the possibility of the LB, and if it happens, you choose a side and make the best of it. Civs beginning with the LB in mind doesn't feel quite right to me.

I think a lot of this is covered above, but another thing that comes up here is our previous discussion of the LB as a replacement for the Time victory, and therefore being a catch-all. I realize now that that wasn't quite the right way to frame it. I think the actual winning of the game through the LB should be balanced to occur alongside the other victory conditions, for all the reasons above. But the game can't go on forever, because it can't be balanced in perpetuity (or at least we choose not to take on the task of trying to make it so). Firaxis' solution to that is the Time victory, that forces the game to end before the balance falls out of whack after the endgame. This has always felt disappointing to me, that someone "wins by default", and earlier in the topic we discussed a loss for all players as our replacement for that endpoint. I think the LB allows us to lead into that, where a stalemated game results in all of the player civs being gradually eliminated by the Shadowspawn civ (they've all failed to win, after all).

Obviously this won't happen very often, but it's a continuation of the flavor of the LB that allows us to have a defined endpoint to the game. It doesn't conflict with the notion of the actual LB victory being balanced directly against the other VCs though.

I don't think the "players are free to play 'against type'" thing isn't the right way to look at this. Of course they can, but we probably shouldn't be designing with that in mind. You say later in your posts (way later, I think), that people tend to like the most "directed" civs, despite the lack of "flexibility" that is present in earlier versions of the game that don't have VC-related uniques. We should be building a game that works well when people play along with type, primarily, and then worry about against-type players later. If by playing the civ as it is designed causes problems (too much telegraphing, etc.),t hen its a problem, even though human players might not ultimately even play that way.

Right, the main concern here is whether or not playing along with type creates design problems. I'm saying here (I think, it was a long time ago!) that the existence of the possibility of playing against type is what makes this not the problem it may first appear. (The AI can play against type as well, particularly here, where we're going to be defining all new AI logic for how it interacts with the LB.) We're worried that having Alignment-specific uniques will telegraph to other players what Alignment the civ will take in a given game. But it doesn't tell other players anything about what the civ is actually doing right now, in this game. It provides them a suspicion to try to confirm, which I think is something players will want to be doing anyway (trying to work out which side each player is going to pick this game, and how that might affect their choice). The processes they go through to make that confirmation will be the same regardless, though it may affect which types of assessments they make (look for Light-indicators first in a civ with Light-related bonuses). I think that distinction is important and could make Alignment-specific uniques quite viable, particularly considering all of the mechanics that are unique to each side.

In sum, on telegraphing etc., I'd like to keep it to a minimum, etc. But, I'm not trying to be absurd here. Obviously, if a civ has an LB-related ability, that is somewhat a telegraph, by design. But "ooh, Shienar's in the game, I'll have to deal with them in the LB!" is a lot like "ooh, France is in this game, I'll have to deal with their culture!", and isn't a problem at all. "Ooh, Shienar's in the game, better brace for an LB" is much worse, and "ooh, Shienar's in the game, he's choosing light", is much, much worse.

I don't think the first part of the "worse" sentiment ("Shienar's in the game, better brace for an LB") is possible, given the way the LB works. No one civ has the mechanical opportunity to force an LB from a position of weakness (or at least, they shouldn't). If Shienar becomes a dominant force in a given game, then the fact that they're an LB focused civ means they're likely to go for the LB victory condition, at which point other civs should prepare. This seems to be more in like with your first sentiment, about needing to deal with them in the LB. If Shienar isn't doing well, then their actions don't really affect the starting of the LB, certainly not as much as the more powerful players can. So I think we've avoided that one.

"Shienar's in the game, he's choosing Light" is an interesting one. Related to what I've said above, I think the thought process here should be more like "Shienar's in the game, I should check that he's going Light". Shienar's uniques indicate to the player that Light is likely, but tell them nothing about this Shienar's choices, so they need to investigate (like this other civs), but they can focus their attention on things that would indicate to them whether or not Shienar is doing Light stuff this game.

This makes me think that uniques specific to each side won't be the direct telegraph we're concerned about.

So what do I think?

I think I'm feeling like #3, maybe #4, is probably the way to go here. I think we need to include our LB-related systems to maximize our cool new mechanics. I'm thinking most especially about Alignment here, and T'a'r (though that only tangentially relates to the LB). Other things, like the TW and Shadar Logoth, I am open to (though the latter much less so), but more on a case-by-case basis - I don't think we should strive for their inclusion, necessarily).

I'm less sure that we should engage with the LB itself, though (#4). I'm open to it, but I think it presents some problems. One key issue is that it goes against the rough "equalization" that BNW sets up in the late-game. I'd worry that boosting somebody during the LB too much could cause problems for *any* VC. I'd also worry that we'd potentially be making that civ lame for the entire earlier part of the game.

That said, I think there are ways to make this mostly innocuous, if done properly. I'm open to it.

I am pretty much a "no" on #5 (side-related abilities), and I think the reasons for that should be clear by now, and need not be reiterated.

In general, I wouldn't want to go lower than #4, and I think #5 is quite doable, and potentially desirable. The reasons for those choices are elsewhere in this post.

But as I've touched on above, even if we go with #5 here as something that's acceptable, the actual "#5" attributes of side-specific stuff may only affect one civ or one unique of a single civ, or possibly none at all, in our FLCs.

As a caveat, I should also add that, regardless of which option we choose, I'd like to see any LB-related unique be useful outside of an LB-game. So, ideally, it isn't a UA that helps you with Seals, it's a unique that helps you with something that helps you with seals. That way, if the end-game comes before the LB starts, or if you do play "against type", you still get something for the Unique. I could be convinced to let this go for one unique or something, but it absolutely needs to be true for a civ as a whole.

I don't think this is something we should avoid, and the reasons tie into a lot of the above, with treating the LB structurally like the other victory conditions. If a civ has LB related uniques and the game ends before the LB happens, or before they can properly leverage their uniques during the LB, then that's just a symptom of that player not playing well in that particular game, not that the civ is badly designed. The player was unable to maneuver the game into a position where their uniques provided them advantage. (Much like a civ whose UUs are in the Medieval era getting conquered in the Classical era, they failed to get themselves into the right position for those uniques to help.)

The overall civ approach to this plays a lot into the synergy stuff we're discussing elsewhere. I've seen many complaints about Byzantium in BNW that is somewhat like this (and I believe we've discussed it earlier in the topic already). Byzantium's UA makes your religion better, but nothing of its other uniques helps you get a religion in the early game, which can lead to you being locked out of your UA's bonus (by civs with more effective early religion, like the Celts and Ethiopia). A lot of players call this out as a design issue with Byzantium and in general I'm inclined to agree. But the issue isn't that the UA does what it does (an extra Belief is a cool UA!), it's that the other uniques don't help it, so players can miss out entirely on the UA's bonus.

This specific issue is mechanically unique to the Religion system and how max religions interacts with the early game, but the general structure is instructive for LB focused civs. I don't think we want to avoid uniques that are LB-mechanic-specific (stuff that destroys Seals, or any of the other things that we've mentioned above). What we want to keep in mind is that if we do have such uniques, the civ's other uniques should help them get to a position where they're useful. (In our Byzantium example, if they had an early UB that produced Faith.)

To this end, I think I'd also like to propose that we aim to have "LB Victory" only ever be the secondary victory preference of a civ (after Domination, Culture, Diplomacy, or Science, understanding that "primary" and "secondary" are vague distinctions). I think given the complexity we've been looking at here, that is probably the safest path.

I don't think we want to do this, and my reasoning is pretty much all above. I think it's worth reiterating that making our new victory condition, that players will want to experience as fans of the books, something that's secondary to the existing victory conditions risks making it a lot less fun than it should be - something that interrupts and foils the player's plans, rather than something they work towards.

<gasp>. OK, that was way, way too long. I'm bummed because I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and this has come out way less articulate than I hoped it would!

No worries, I think the same thing about what I've said above!


It's time for some dinner, but I should be back with more later!

EDIT: Bah, dinner ended up taking forever, and I forgot to compensate for the timezone difference meaning I'm not doing my usual late nights! I'll be back tomorrow!

 

[S3rgeus]

permit me to make a rather S3rgeous post...

I genuinely loled at this when I first saw it!

I'll also add up our numerical scores, though without any weighting of particular categories (which is arguable). When we disagree, my final score will be the average of our two scores. A flawed system, of course. (feel free to adjust these scores if you change your mind, or add weight to categories if you prefer - in any case, it's not science, it's just to provide some kind of "objective" measure). afterwards, i'll try to put together a kind of "big picture" list of civs as they appear to line up, FLC-candidacy-wise, based on these numbers, and see how they fit with "feel" as well.

I've elected not to list VCs with the averages (e.g. "The Aiel (Culture/Domination)" or whatever), since in most cases those are flexible enough that we can kind of put them aside for now. Once we've agreed on a kind of ranking and-or shortened the list of candidates, we can reattach these secondary aspects.

Having read through to the end, I like the results that have come out of this process! I'll do some more numbers for some different weighting systems just for the sake of thoroughness, but I think we're in a good place with this first approach.

To that end, let me first drop some "averages" for the civs I added in the other day, though you of course haven't chimed in on them.

The Two Rivers
Total Score: 12 [this score is interesting. High, but still probably not high enough to include them]

Aldeshar
Total Score: 9

Almoth
Total Score: 8

Isle of Madmen/Land of Madmen
Total Score: 12

Pre-Consolidation Seanchan
Total Score: 13 [interesting!]

This is a good point! I forgot to give these scores when I responded to your proposals in my last post. Just a second!

...

I've gone back and edited my last post to include ratings.

My thoughts on the LB civs are in the previous long post, but I'd say, flavor-wise, the Aiel actually would make some great sense as an LB civ - they are, after all, central to the prophesies of the Light.

But then again, that provides some rather strong arguments against doing that - 1) they're central to the Light, which is perhaps problematic (in that their "biased" to one side), and 2) the flavorful things that make them central to the LB, and thus would make for good mechanics, are also things that would work well as mechanics for the other VCs - thus, don't really need to be attached to the LB itself. I'm thinking of things like their late-game unification, coming over the wall and conquering lands, etc. Of course, if we went "all in" on LB-uniques, something that boosts their power when using the car'a'carn would be fitting, but I think that's the kind of thing I, at least, don't want to do.

Jumping back briefly to the LB stuff, this is a good example of somewhere that the flavor can take us to a side-specific bonus. The details of that are in my previous post though.

It's also possible to make such a bonus (likely a UA) different on each side. If you're on the Light side, it changes how you interact with the Dragon somehow, if on the Shadow side, it has a different Dragon-related effect. Certainly a possibility.

I agree with your first few scores, but would actually boost your final two by one:

Mechanics: 3 - The Aiel are really our only flavor-ful way of creating a T'a'r UU. I feel like we kind of have to grab that.
Placement: 5 - I understand why we could dock them for being "modern day," but... they aren't, really. This civ, as far as I can tell, dates from the beginning of the Third Age. Considering the low-tech nature of their Uniques, we can pretty much put them in any era. Combine this with Desert, and we have a 5. However, of course I do understand that, to fit the "feel" of the books, we probably will feel compelled to make their uniques late-game, but we certainly don't have to (and probably should resist!)

The Aiel
Total Score: 16 and 18 = 17

I like your approach of averaging our scores to get a final result that means both of our assessments contribute. I don't feel like any of the differences are significant enough to warrant discussing changing them up or down beyond what we've both given so far, so rather than go through all of your individually, I'll just say I agree overall!

So I've just pulled out a few quote blocks that I think have useful discussions, but otherwise I'll skip over everything that's just a simple agreement. And then on to the leaderboard!

The LB is an interesting one here. Obviously, it's totally anachronistic to give them a directly-LB-related unique, as their civ is long dead by then. However, having them have something going on in the TW is very suitable. However, again, I'd suggest that this isn't necessarily truly an "LB VC" if we do this - they could get military, economic, or cultural (even diplo) benefits from exploits in the TW, that help their overall game, not just their LB prominence. Of course, if give them specific Alignment boosts as a result of their TW actions, that could be one (the only?) exception, if it was "Do stuff in TW and get alignment", but also find that somewhat uninspired, actually.

Yeah, whether a TW bonus would actually end up contributing to the LB VC would depend on the nature of that bonus. It's certainly a good way to capture flavor and integrate the mod well into the game to use our new mechanics to fuel strategies for the existing victory conditions!

Regarding the LB - keep in mind that I'm mostly opposed to "direct" LB VCs - "the definition of Neutral" shouldn't exclude them. Neutrality is a side on the LB. Their last minute decision could play a part of such a thing. Granted, I don't want this kind of VC, but I'm just saying - we shouldn't be inconsistent: if some civ's dedication to the light is a consideration, then so should another civ's ambivalence.

This is about the Seanchan.

My views on the LB stuff are above, but this stood out to me. Neutral is a side in the LB, but only a side that's particularly useful to civs who are pursuing other victory conditions. You can't win the LB victory by picking Neutral. So when I say the "definition of Neutral" excludes them from being an LB pursuing civ, that's because if we design them in line with this particular flavor, then they will specifically be encouraged to pick the side that doesn't let them win the LB victory. Hence, they're not an LB victory focused civ. That seems to be the point of the Neutral side, to me.

Seanchan
Total Score: 19

(almost a perfect score!)

So close!

I see what you mean about the LB, and I've discussed this a lot above. However, I also could easily see shadowspawn-related things be a source for some other kinds of VCs - providing culture, or economics or whatever. I'm not sold that *any* civ should have "LB" as its primary. I understand the argument here, but I also worry that by slapping "LB" on them, we're sort of grabbing at some notions of Borderlander culture, and almost being lazy with them, mechanically (by saying it means they're the "good guys" and leaving it at that). I feel like we could go in different directions here, if we wanted. Dom/Culture or Science/Culture fueled by epic defense, even. I'm not saying they can't interact with the alignment system, though.

Totally agree, given how many Borderlander civs there are, using the Shadowspawn systems to fuel other VCs on some of those civs would go a long way to making them more unique, and makes our systems more integrated into the game. This also addresses my concern from the previous post in this block about all Borderlander civs ending up being LB-focused, since that's where the initial flavor points. (I would be inclined to lead with an LB focused Borderlander civ as an FLC though, since that seems to capture that Borderlander flavor very well - we just don't want to do it for all of them.)

My comments on this civ's link to the LB are detailed elsewhere, I'm pretty sure. I can see it, like Manetheren, having some TW-related stuff. Having Cleansing-related things, though, seems highly problematic to me, as I think I've outlined before. If they have a cleansing-related UU.... why aren't they Shadar Logoth? If some random CS (as we've intended) is the civ that becomes SL, then it doesn't make much sense for Aridhol to have anything to do with it (especially since the civ was long dead by that era anyways).... Not sure I love hitting the LB VC so hard here

Like Traveling being used as a common flavor for a couple of different mechanics, I don't see the existence of the Shadar Logoth mechanics as something that precludes us from hinting at Aridhol's Logoth-ness in the lore as a part of an Aridhol civ. We would want to avoid things that cause obvious paradoxes (allowing Aridhol to transform one of its own cities into an "extra Shadar Logoth" or some such), but as long as there's no redundancy in the way the ability/unique interacts with the Shadar Logoth system, then it seems totally fine.

I would say we should be asking: "Why must it be Shadar Logoth if its uniques are related to the Cleansing?"

Rough examples (not actual suggestions, just examples of how that non-conflict can be achieved):

UA: Communed with Shadow
Contributions Aridhol makes to the anti-Cleansing project are doubled.
(LB side issues and the utility of such a UA notwithstanding, this clearly nods to Aridhol being Shadar Logoth in the books, but has no in-game redundancy with the Logoth system as we've designed it.)

UU: Ruby Dagger Thieves
Unit has double combat strength within 10 hexes of Shadar Logoth, but takes 5 damage per turn every turn it spends more than 15 hexes away from Shadar Logoth.

UA: Where the Shadow Waits
Units controlled by Aridhol do double damage when attacking units that have the "Cleanse Saidin" mission available.

UB: Channeling Focus
Contributions to either Cleansing project from this city are doubled. (+ some yield, for normal building utility)

(crazy) UA: Where the Shadow Waits
When Shadar Logoth is destroyed, one of Aridhol's cities (of the player's choice) becomes Shadar Logoth in its place and Aridhol gains control of Mashadar.

(also crazy) UA: Where the Shadow Waits
Aridhol may make peace and ally with the Shadar Logoth city state (which provides some bizarre, flavorfully appropriate double-edged sword of a bonus of our choice).

(overall I'd say things look grim for Mayene)

It's Far Madding they look grim for, right?

(6! Almost by definition, all of the "don't include these" random civs from Category three would score higher - because they'd almost all have good Placement scores from not being modern).

Poor Murandy!


I'm afraid that's all I have time for tonight, so I'll be back again tomorrow!

 

[S3rgeus]

Also, on the note of the early game, did I already mention that we have a presumed big hole in Era 1? I think I mentioned it already. Of course, we could elect to start some civ's flavor early (whether it be an era 2 civ, or else some other primitive unit, e.g. an Aiel unit). The problem with that is of course the flavor - part of the Era of Nations' existence is that that's when the true civs first popped up. thoughts?

I think between starting some civs' flavor a bit early (Era of Nations civs) and having low tech stuff there (we'll likely want some things to unlock very early for mechanical reasons for some civs as well) then we should be able to cover Era 1 ok.

Yeah. Would be awesome to see guides like this on *our* game/civs!

Man, that would be so cool! Can't wait for this to be playable!

It's a good sign that we're still excited about this after so long.

I agree with this in general, though we can't really tackle specific numbers until we decide what the heck we're ultimately doing with the LB VC. But I do agree that we can leave some civs to be "swing civs" that move between VCs, especially those that focus on the special mechanics (Paths, etc.).

It looks like we'll end up coming back to specific numbers for this once we've decided on the civs below.

ok, so let's probably just keep things to 1 bias per civ, then.

Agreed, combining biases doesn't seem like it will work. Having fallbacks could be sensible though, if the first isn't available.

What do you think we should do, then? I suppose the only civ that would scream for this is the Two Rivers - a river start without desert. If we don't include them, is it probably simplest (and thus best) to just leave this out?

I'd say we'll only add this bias if we've got a civ that wants to use it. It may be something we add later if Two Rivers (or any other civ that specifically wants a river) ends up being a post-launch civ.

(semi-related. Sucks that the Aztecs don't have a "near lakes" start bias).

It does, though they're good fun on the lakes map types!

OK,let's recap some civs! And this'll be where I stop today.

Doing these in score order. If a civ has a * by its score, that means its score is possibly contentious and an average of two scores, or else hasn't been ranked by all of us (thus we could adjust this list afterwards if you so desire). And of course you could suggest a weighted system, which would change all of these scores.

Seanchan: 19
The Aiel: 17*
Shandalle: 17
Shara: 15*
Tuatha'an: 14*
Malkier: 13.5
Manetheren: 13*
Pre-Consolidation Seanchan: 13*
Mayene: 12.5*
Prophet Ghealdan: 12.5*
The Sea Folk: 12.5
Shienar: 12.5*
Children Amadicia: 12
The Isle of Madmen/Land of Madmen: 12*
The Two Rivers: 12*
Andor: 11.5*
Aramaelle: 11.5*
Aridhol: 11.5*
Tear: 11.5*
Shaido Aiel: 11
Illian: 10.5*
Tarabon: 10
Altara: 9.5*
Cairhien: 9.5*
Far Madding: 9.5*
Aldeshar: 9*
Arad Doman: 9
Saldaea: 9*
Non-Prophet Ghealdan: 8.5*
Almoth: 8*
Arafel: 7.5*
Kandor: 7.5*
Non-Children Amadicia: 7*
Murandy: 6

Very interesting!

Awesome! I think these rankings have produced a very appropriate list! Looking at it, it does feel like it captures the right balance of recognizable and varied.

If we find the civs that we previously mentioned as locks, and stick them first, then fill up til we have 14 civs...

The Aiel
Andor
The Atha'an Miere
Cairhien
Illian
Manetheren
Seanchan
Tear
Shandalle
Shara
Tuatha'an
Malkier
Manetheren
Pre-Consolidation Seanchan

I'm assuming we're disqualifying the Tuatha'an as an FLC. We might be disqualifying P-C Seanchan as well, though, I'm not sure. Doing both of those would allow us to bring in:

Mayene
Prophet Ghealdan

and that's 14. What would the next batch of, say, 6, civs be?

EDIT
I should clarify here, as I think I wasn't clear before. I'm continuing on past the 14 because, interestingly, the 14 feels like it leaves out a few pretty important civs. Not counting P-C Seanchan, the one's that feel conspicuously absent from this original 14 are Shienar, Amadicia, and Altara.
/EDIT

Shienar
Children Amadicia
The Isle of Madmen/Land of the Madmen
The Two Rivers
Aramaelle
Aridhol

If we disqualify The Isle of MM and The Two Rivers, which we might, that brings in

The Shaido Aiel
Tarabon

...if we disqualify The Shaido Aiel, that brings in...

Altara

So the list of the "top 20" FLC candidates is, according to this exercise:

The Aiel
Andor
The Atha'an Miere
Cairhien
Illian
Manetheren
Seanchan
Tear
Shandalle
Shara
Malkier
Manetheren
Mayene
Prophet Ghealdan
Shienar
Children Amadicia
Aramaelle
Aridhol
Tarabon
Altara
(Pre-Consolidation Seanchan)
(Aldeshar)

This is very interesting. I think virtually all of those civs are ones I feel pretty good about having in there, and would feel somewhat unsettled about cutting. The exceptions could be Aramaelle and Aridhol, just because they aren't as prominent in my mind (though need to be there for other reasons!) and Tarabon, maybe Altara which I could see being borderline, as is the case with Mayene.

I'd also suggest we might consider re-adding Pre-Consolidation Seanchan there for previously-stated reasons. Also, Aldeshar might be worth considering for its Placement.

EDIT
Saldaea and Arad Doman appear to me to only "popular" civs that doesn't make the cut - in other words, the modern ones significant to the story, that aren't totally minor (Arafel, Murandy, etc.) /EDIT

So that's a list of 20-ish civs. honestly, I know we're unlikely to include all of them as FLCS, but as mentioned previously, we might want to consider *designing* them. and seeing what happens. Once we get the list somewhat stable, we can dig deeper and see what start biases, potential VCs, etc. pop - see if things are at all balance (which will likely help us determine the *actual* final list.

What do you think of the list? What do you think of the process? Next steps?

I'm liking the list of 20! I do slightly worry about including Aramaelle and not including Saldaea and Arad Doman. Still, considering how many civs we've gone through, for that to be my only worry speaks highly of our process!

As I've touched on in my latest set of posts, I'm fine with designing all 20 in order to help us pare it down to an FLC list of 14. (I also think that it's awesome that we've got 31 civs to consider at this point, and there are still more that we're not using, even if they would be a bit light on flavor!)

Related to these rankings, I like them (as mentioned above) but I think it's worth doing a quick assessment of what the rankings look like if we give a weighting to prominence. I did this in Excel (and saved it to the DropBox), and so reproduced the original rankings as well since it was easy to do. I noticed that your rankings seem to have the Sea Folk down at 12.5, even though it looks like they should be at 16.5?

Also, your final list of 20 appears to have Manetheren listed twice (so there are only 19 civs there). From the unweighted scores, that would mean Far Madding is now up for consideration as #20. If we choose to DQ Far Madding so we don't have two CS-flavor civs as FLCs, then Arad Doman or Saldaea comes in (both tied at 12).

Back to the weighting, for a rough estimate, I'll go with "prominence counts for double":

Seanchan 24
The Aiel 22
Shandalle 21
Sea Folk 20.5
Tuatha'an 18.5
Shara 18
Malkier 17
Manetheren 16.5
Shienar 16.5
Ghealdan 16.5
Mayene 16.5
Andor 16.5
P-C Seanchan 15.5
Tarabon 15.5
Two Rivers 15.5
Tear 15.5
Amadicia 15
Illian 14.5
Shaido 14
Aridhol 13.5
Isle of Madmen 13.5
Altara 13.5
Cairhien 13.5
Aramaelle 12.5
Far Madding 12.5
Arad Doman 12
Saldaea 12
Aldeshar 10
Almoth 10
Arafel 9.5
Kandor 9.5
Murandy 8

As you've done, taking the list of "locked" civs and then filling in until 14, entries in brackets are discounted for non-points reasons (and therefore not counted):

Seanchan
The Aiel
Shandalle
Sea Folk
(Tuatha'an)
Shara
Malkier
Manetheren
Shienar
Prophet Ghealdan
Mayene
Andor
(P-C Seanchan)
(Two Rivers)
Tear
Illian
Cairhien

And that's 14. Going on to the next 6:

Tarabon
Children Amadicia
(Shaido)
Aridhol
(Isle of Madmen)
Altara
Aramaelle
Far Madding

Final list from that:

Seanchan
The Aiel
Shandalle
Sea Folk
Shara
Malkier
Manetheren
Shienar
Prophet Ghealdan
Mayene
Andor
Tear
Tarabon
Illian
Cairhien
Children Amadicia
Aridhol
Altara
Aramaelle
Far Madding
(P-C Seanchan)

Which was all a lot of work... to end up with the same list! Some of the order changed, but none of them dropped off the end of the list.

In terms of DQing civs, I think P-C Seanchan is the main potential DQ to consider not doing. I would be inclined to include them over Far Madding. What about you? Does the Aldeshar campaign live on?

In terms of next steps for the process, I'll go into that below where you've put a suggestion for a list of steps in your next post!


Again, that's all the time I've got for tonight! But I'll be back tomorrow for the finale reply that completes my turn!

 

[S3rgeus]

all right! Back for the finale - thanks for the patience!

Finale here too! Also thanks for the patience! I hope for shorter replies for us to get better turnaround times, but when we get to designing the actual civs, this will likely explode out into a massive series of quote blocks again!

Yeah, as I said before, I don't think it's such a bad thing to "roughly" design some number of civs beyond what we realistically plan to launch with.

Specifically, I can foresee the following pattern of events looking somewhat like:

1) decide on major issues (LB, # of uniques, etc.)
2) agree on which civs to work with (whether as limited FLC-guarantee only civs, or somewhat expanded beyond that, as I've proposed)
3) agree on and compare "big picture" considerations for balance (VC spread, era spread, start bias spread, etc.), adjust list if need be, adjust civ traits if need be (stretch flavor, etc.)
4) do first pass brainstorm, flavor-centric Unique dump for civs, including possible UU's (but no details on what they actually are), possible UB's or UI's (again, no details, just broad flavor), and "thematic" or broad UA ideas (e.g. "faith through conquering cities" or "better governor yields", etc.).
5) re-evaluate and re-align #3.
6) from there, choose which civs to focus on immediately, and dive in with more detail - decide on UA and broad strokes of other uniques (e.g. "melee 3 replacement with extra movement), delve into Leader and other such things
7) "final" steps - likely limited to the list of "true" FLCs - actual "numbers" about Uniques (combat strength, yields, etc.), list of cities, other flavor

What do you think?

This seems like a good plan for moving forward. It looks like all of our rankings posts for individual civs should collapse down shortly and we'll be left with the big things (LB seems like it may be the most involved thing left, 3 uniques looks like it's much more straightforward below).

I think we've sort of already completed step #2, I'm happy with the list of 20 civs from our posts above, and that seems to be what you're suggesting as well. (Barring possible shuffling of one or two civs near the end - Far Madding, PreConsolidation Seanchan, Arad Doman, Saldaea, and Aldeshar all competing for slot #20!)

Also, just to be sure, "civ traits" in step #3 doesn't refer to UAs, right? (CiV itself often refers to UAs as traits, but given the context I don't think that's what you mean.)

I would also say that after step #5 we may be able to eliminate some more civs from FLC candidacy, since we'll have explored their options more by that point and have a better idea of the big picture of our VC distribution and other inclusion factors. (There seems to be an implicit elimination step between #6 and #7, where we pare down to the final FLC count, which also sounds good to me!)

I agree. I think with 3 uniques (if we do that), we have room to diverge a little bit here, but yes - synergize when possible. It doesn't have to be super-direct (something like Korea's "build science with UA and defend yourself in early game with UU's is a good example of indirect synergy), but something like the disparate uniques of Byzantium isn't idea.

Sounds good.

I think we don't need to agonize over this, so I'll say in general I'd think I'd like to preserve balance and not go overboard on sciency stuff and diplo stuff. You're right that those civs just compete against each other, but I'd still say a game full of epic diplo or culture civs would be pretty annoying...

Agreed on mechanics-specific ones.

Sounds good - keep up the general balance and it shouldn't become a problem!

This is actually a pretty big decision, for obvious reasons, and it's been somewhat "given" for awhile that we'll do three uniques... Probably we should consider this rather careful.

I agree with your lists here, though I'd add one disadvantage (though it's possible that it's just a corollary to the balance one): the relationship of civs to eras might get complicated. For instance, we could create a situation rather easily where a civ has a unique "active" in essentially all parts of the game (an early UB, mid UU, and late UU). Probably this isn't the best idea. I know some of this will correct itself, considering the era-limits of most (though not all civs), but we might want to create a kind of rough policy that a civ's three UU's should possibly only "cover" a maximum of two segments of the game (if not actual eras). I suppose what I'm trying to prevent is situations where a civ is "unique" for the entire game. On the other hand, we should probably also try not to double-up in the same specific era (two UUs simultaneously in one civ, etc.). In other words, even if we add a 3rd Unique for each civ, we might benefit from keeping the overal "dominant time" of a given civ roughly the same (neither spread out much further, nor concentrated too much). Thoughts?

In general, I'd say doing three uniques carries with it one primary benefit: it's "cooler" and more fun. However, it complicates stuff a bit. For me, that's the fundamental decision.

So, where do I land? I suppose I like the idea of doing three uniques, though it makes me slightly nervous. I suppose we could make a committment to have one of the uniques be "weaker" than a typical BNW unique (or, depending on how things work out, this could be a UA). I guess, while I like the fun and variety of three uniques, I don't really want to increase a civ's "power" all that much in an absolute sense. This'll majorly favor human players of course. Or if we did, do it in some simple, systematized way that doesn't eff up the game too much.

I suppose I'm fine with making the 3 uniques infinitely flexible, and not limited to 2 UUs, and 1 UB/UI. I'm guessing that 2 UU's will be the most common result, though.

This is definitely a big decision. And it seems strange that we don't really have anything big swinging us one way or the other. If it's any indication, there is (or at least was) a mod that adds an extra unique to all of the base game civs that was quite popular, so at least some players are enthused by the idea.

I agree that it's cooler, and should make the civs feel more distinct from each other as well. The difficulty mostly seems to be frontloaded on us - make the game still work with more variables - players just get a more diverse experience.

I wouldn't be inclined to make one weaker than the others since most uniques are replacements for stuff, so gimping one of them would feel like a penalty since they'd be worse than the default unit/building being replaced. (If they weren't worse, then they wouldn't be weaker than the other uniques, which often are similar-but-different to the default units, not just better.)

I'd say let's go with 3 uniques!

OK, I'm in agreement. I doubt will have too many of these - frankly, I think we might have to kind of "force" the flavor into making these fit, so I doubt we'll feel compelled/inspired to have too many of them. Also agreed that they don't have to be sourced from the UBs, though I suppose we'll have to be very conscious of things if we source it from a UU - the civ might end up rather yield-heavy at that point.

I think the distinction between the two will largely be made by mechanics. Improvements and Buildings do inherently different things in the game (a Feitoria building would be confusing). So if we want a certain type of effect, then sometimes an Improvement will be more appropriate.

Cool. It may end up that we don't have a literal UG though - it may be the most elegant to simply have such a thing be a factor of a UA, or even a UB.

Could be, though I'd like to explore the UG route too! It's something for one of the later steps now though.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. If you're saying we should keep these kinds of things relatively rare, then I agree.

I was weighing the pros and cons of both approaches. Having "strange" (in BNW terms) uniques be quite rare establishes a "normal" baseline for players and makes those strange uniques stand out more. On the other hand, our players will be familiar with CiV and its "normal" uniques. I wonder if having a larger proportion of our uniques be strange ones would make the whole mod more engaging, because there's always something very different to do.

I think we'll actually have the avantage of not having to break flavor too much to accomplish this, either. We don't, for example, know that the Maidens are only endemic to the "modern" era - they may very well have existed way earlier. While civ had to "Break" flavor (e.g. the Mayan UUs existing thousands of years before the mayans), it seems to me that most of the prime candidates for such things (Aiel (era 1?), Shara (era 1?), The Sea Folk (unclear, era 3?), P-C Seanchan (era 1?), even regular Seanchan (era 4?), are also civs that did in fact exist way earlier in the timeline - and all the others exist essentially as of era 5. The only real flavor consequence is having book-era units no longer relevant during the LB (e.g. Mayener Winged Guards not fighting for the forces of the Light because they've been obsolete since era 6). This is likely acceptable, though.

Yeah, it sounds like backporting will be easier for us because WoT history is more flexible than real history! More unknowns!

Agreed. Regarding UB's, also agreed - it might simply be a matter of making their late-game effects greater (higher yields), or creating some sort of alternate functionality/effect.

Yep, sounds like a plan.

I generally agree, though i'd caution us to prevent the kind of uber-dominance I mentioned above (whether by *always* having an active unique, or by having *all* of them in *one* era). I'd say in general we should try to stay roughly BNW-like. I think the flavor will probably do that for us. There are only a few civs that'll present us with any real opportunity for a super-wide spread anyways.

As I touched on before, I don't think this will necessarily be as big of an issue as it may appear here. I'm happy to see where things fall and go from there, in terms of distribution.

Agreed. I do like the Turtle ship as an example - it's based on the caravel, but by no means is it a "super caravel" (it can't enter oceans) - rather, it's an alternate. I'd prefer this kind of thing than to creating super artillery and other such "era-defining unit, but better!" situations.

Yeah, it's a good one!

You're suggesting we potentially add more UUs later in the tree, right? I'm open to this. Not sure where I stand on many of them being present during the literal LB, though (see way above).

Yes. And the rest is covered way above as well!

I understand and agree, but I have to say that I don't think the WoT flavor is going to do us many favors on spreading out UU types - not counting the channelers, I suspect we'll see a lot of melee and mounted units. Hopefully we find some room for exceptions.

Agreed, we can only do what we can - there won't be nonstandard unique flavor for a lot of the civs. We may find ways around that by being inventive with their interpretations - still true to the flavor, just not the most direct conversion of melee/horseback as the books might at first suggest. It will be a case by case thing anyway.

hmmm... not quite sure what you mean about "leaning warlike" with UB's. You mean put in more XP and defense related UBs in the later parts of the game?

I'm not sure what I was talking about, I think I may have gotten confused about what I was replying to. I think the spread of UBs has been addressed elsewhere now though - by allowing them to crop up later in the tree and such?

great! Finally done! My answers above are generally pretty fricken bland, though I think there are a few key things to discuss.

Hooray!

Your turn!

Your turn again! And hopefully this will get a lot shorter (relatively briefly) before exploding back out into a flavor-dive-athon on the civs listed above!

 

[counterpoint]

I'll start by saying that there are a number of quote blocks that I'll either be ignoring or
otherwise trivializing. There was a *lot* of repetition in my previous post to you, and
that has provoked a lot of repetition in your posts, so there isn't need to respond to
everything. Also, on some of the bigger blocks, you might see some things akin "oh,
ok, sure!" instead of a longer response. I think at this point we've made some in depth
arguments on things, and it's not necessarily necessary (yay English!) to elaborate as
much on this time around.

At last, I have returned! I've been traveling far and wide
the last three weeks, hence the dismal reply times on my part. But now I'm home again
and all should go back to normal!

It's cool, we're still set for our 2021 release
date.

Same, I'm going through for all the achievements! Only 3 leaders left from Vanilla!
(I haven't been playing them in order.)

yeah, you're ahead of me... but in related
news, Germany. *daaaamn* that was one of the most unbalanced dom victors I've ever
won on Emperor. The first time I ever went above the supply cap...

Oh, I see what you mean here, and totally agree. As will come up later, I'm totally fine
with us designing more than 14 in an effort to decide which civs should be FLCs.
(Or if we decide to go with more than 14 FLCs, designing more than that number to
help the decision equally works.) My main thing about this process is I think we
should only go ahead with designing civs now if we're considering them as FLCs.
Once we've decided a specific civ won't be an FLC, then I'd say we can drop the design
for it to be picked up again at a later date.

This is a good example of something I put out there like 700 times before, and you've
had to painfully respond 800 times. So, simply:

I agree. If we *eliminate* it, don't design, otherwise, design em! (at least in the big
picture)

I'm a bit confused about balancing here though - it would seem to me that balancing
isn't something that's part of the design phase we're in now? We will make a general
pass at balance here from subjective assessments, but the time consuming stuff I was
talking about was actually playing games with these civs implemented in the game and
looking for ways that they might be unexpectedly powerful or unexpectedly
underwhelming. I don't think we want to get to that stage with civs that we aren't
pretty much locked in for FLC-ness.

perhaps "balancing" isn't the right word (I
mean balancing as a part of the big-picture process, not specific numbers and
playtesting). We're in agreement, I think. You're correct that actual balancing won't
necessarily happen now.

Yeah, that appears to be mumbo-jumbo! Looking at the code, I don't see anywhere
that takes any civ-specific biases into account. Putmalk describes how the AI decides
which Ideology to pick
here
.

Interesting! Mumbo-jumbo it is! This is interesting, all the talk of "Grand Strategic AI"
- I suppose that kind of thing is the "VC leaning" of a civ - is that a fixed thing that's
actually attached to a civ's code, or is it more ad hoc, as each game is created?

Minor spelling: Emond's Field, Taren Ferry, and Deven Ride

Yeah yeah yeah, I kniw how to spull

Otherwise I agree, there will definitely be some fans who want to see Two Rivers as a
civ. I'm still in a very similar place to where I mentioned last time, where I don't really
think Two Rivers should be an FLC. I wouldn't be inclined to specifically re-
distribute its flavor (like longbows) to any other civ, because that does feel more about
Two Rivers than those civs, who, in Andor and Manetheren's cases, have other flavor
that's very much about them we could use instead.

We could totally do a rivers or mountains bias, which I detailed a bit more in one of my
later posts last time.

I agree on Culture as a primary. LB could be a possible secondary (more on the LB in
general later), riffing on the importance of the main characters somehow (particularly
since none of the other victory conditions seem to fit that well).

It does still feel to me that Two Rivers is like the Shaido, in that they
feel more like a scenario civ than a main game civ. (Rise of Two Rivers, where you
rebel against Andor via some culture-y-ish mechanics, "events" at certain times that call
out to the main characters making the place more famous, etc.) I'm happy to explore
them further for now, but it doesn't seem to me like they'll particularly fill a specific
mechanical niche for us. And if we're including mostly for flavor reasons, I'd say all
of the above about not-complete-civ-ness counteracts that.

Two Rivers
Prominence: 4 - Agreed, definitely recognizable, but docked a point for not quite being
a civ 95%.
Flavor: 3 - I think there's some unique stuff that makes it stand out from both Andor
and Manetheren.
Mechanics: 1 - River start bias is new and weird, but it doesn't actually change very
much for the player.
Placement: 3 - This could be interesting if we pitch it as a very late game civ, since it
"emerges" around the time of the books, but that does present mechanical challenges.

I think I'm in agreement here, so, we're disqualifying it as an FLC, yes? That means we
won't continue to design it.

I should say, though, that the "I wouldn't be inclined to specifically redistribute its
flavor" thing is a pretty big thing. I think, probably, I agree. It would be cool to have
Longbows and such, but on the other hand, *not* having them solves a few problems,
most notably, it keeps our options open on a future TR civ. So, I'm not sure we have to
decide this 100% now - we'll see how easy it is to come up with Manetheren/Andor
UUs, for instance - but I'd say, yes, for now let's aim to not redistribute TR flavor.

I suppose the one thing that gives me some pause is the whole "some people might
expect them, and might be disappointed" thing. Not sure what else to suggest though - I
suspect our rationale for not including them should be somewhat obvious.

Ours scores are more or less within expected variance.

A definite distinction, but I don't think that direct comparison captures what drives my
feeling on these two comparatively.

Generally, Arad Doman exists as its own country that does its own stuff in the
books. As you've said, the characters from there don't drip with specifics about their
culture, which to me has meant that we hear more about it as a nation than as just a set
of characteristics of its people.

Saldaea, I wouldn't be inclined to FLC, but it doesn't really have anything to do
with Arad Doman. It's mainly because, given the civ counts we're discussing
and how we want to dole out victories/mechanics, two Borderlander civs as FLCs feel
a bit redundant to me, and of the Borderlanders, Shienar would easily be my
preference.

I'm happy to take both of these on as FLC candidates for the moment.

hmmm...
interesting. I don't necessarily disagree - I guess I sort of half-agree.

In any case, it seems moot for now - both civs look like they're likely to still remain in
contention - certainly we don't seem to want to disqualify either right now.

Cool, it sounds like we're eliminating the Shaido then. More detail when you
do the full list later!

agreed

I see what you mean here, but I definitely wouldn't want to count them out at this stage.
I'd like to see what we can do in these design stages with them, because I totally think
that there are versions of Aridhol that don't mechanically step on Shadar
Logoth's toes. There will be ways to wink and nod at it, include a recognizable civ
from an underserved time period, and not duplicate the functionality of the Logoth
city-state stuff (which, at this point, I'd say we definitely need to keep, given its uses
elsewhere!).

Yeah, I'm all for keeping Aridhol in. I suppose I'm in favor of the "wink and nod"
method of dealing with their Logothiness, and, obviously, keeping it within the context
of whatever we decide on LB victories.

This will probably come up a lot when we're discussing leaders, which you mention
above, because I definitely see this as a really big shame!

This is re: Alliandre, aka, "Minor Character Masquerading as Major Character" (lol,
sorry). In any case, somewhat moot for now - looks like Ghealdan is definitely passing
on to the next level. I make no claims to know what actually IS the best leader option
for Gh, so we can certainly entertain MCMaMC when we get there!

I see what you mean about Prophet Ghealdan being useful in how it connects
with Paths, though would we want to have more than one FLC that does that? If we
want to stick with just the one, Amadicia would be the one I'd go for.

it's possible that we only want one, but I don't think we necessarily have to commit to
that now. Also, it's theoretically possible that Ghealdan could be the one that gives us
the awesome Uniques, and amadicia ends up kind of stale, thus letting Gh leap-frog
over Ama as an FLC...

I agree that it's worthy of consideration. I would totally not put Ishara as the leader
though - I'd say that's way too much of a stretch. Ishara is well known as the first
Queen of Andor, and the relative obscurity of Aldeshar would make that super
confusing for most players.

Still, that is something that we can consider when picking leaders, if this civ makes it to
that stage of the process. I'm generally happy with going forward considering
Aldeshar, mostly because it fills the FY niche, as you've said.

I do worry, though, that even though it fills the FY niche, its significant obscurity will
be something players immediately question, since we'll inevitably have left out some
much more prevalent civs from the books era. We have good reason to do that, but I
don't think many players would see it that way - they would just see the missing civ and
point at Aldeshar as an example of something that could totally have been left out.

Prominence: 1 - "Who are these guys?"
Flavor: 1 - Not much, as you've said
Mechanics: 1 - Also doesn't seem to be much here
Placement: 5 - I'd say it's worth bumping this up to 5 seeing as our only locked FY civ
is Hawkwing.

I think it's probably worth keeping around for a bit, as you seem to be saying here.

Agree on Ishara, sadly.

I also do agree with your worries about its relative obscurity. I'd say it's relatively
unlikely that it will make the cut as an FLC, in part because of this, and in part because
I'm guessing the flavor it gives us won't necessarily inspire us to create as compelling
uniques as others might provide. Also, we might be able to fill the FY niche through
broud interpretations of other civs - Seanchan, PC-Seanchan, the Aiel, Shara, the Sea
Folk, etc.

In any case, it survives for now, it seems! Our scores are similar enough here as well.

Agreed, happy to take it forward to the next stage, but unlikely that Almoth will
survive it!

Prominence: 2 - As you've said, recognizable-ish name, but not the nation itself.
Flavor: 1 - Exactly as you've said.
Mechanics: 1 - We could do what we want, but I feel like this score has represented
how much a civ leads us to use interesting/underused mechanics, which this civ doesn't
really.
Placement: 4 - Still from a time period we don't have much of.

I'm not necessarily sure Almoth needs to still be included for consideration. I
don't feel strongly that we must disqualify it, but it's certainly very unlikely to survive,
and might be best off shelved. (btw, our scores are relatively close here, no special
mention needed)

Again, happy to consider going into the next stage.

Like Almoth, I would be surprised if it survives that round, mainly because of
the flavor conflict we've discussed here with omitting civs that have more information
as part of the canon.

Prominence: 2 - Known, but not mentioned often
Flavor: 1 - Maaaaybe 2, if we consider the madness flavor itself
Mechanics: 3 - Interacting with the madness system is unique to them, and there are
interesting things for us to do with that, but it's mostly conjecture.
Placement: 5 - Wherever we want

I'm happy with moving forward on the LoM, but I could also see us cutting it for now.
It does seem to be something that we want - but probably categorically not as an FLC. I
guess it depends on if we think it'd still be helpful to delve in deeper. (noting very close
scoring as well)

This is a very good point about using the Seanchan exotics for the flavor of this
civ. Even if we do use one of them on the Seanchan themselves, there are still
tons more to use on this civ. Taking one of the names of the civs Luthair ran into also
seems like a good plan. Hopefully one that has a leader that was named!

So I'm in favor of this one going on to the next stage.

Prominence: 3 - Certainly better than Isle of Madmen, most fans will recognize it once
they see the uniques.
Flavor: 3 - The actual books Seanchan have a lot of flavor that's shareable here, so we
just need to make sure we don't take the stuff that can be used in both in the Seanchan
civ.
Mechanics: 3 - UU flier is interesting. I don't remember what their affiliation is with
the Portal Stones?
Placement: 4 - They're not right in the FY black hole, though could potentially fit into
the AB one. Still an underserved time period.

agreed.

I'll explain a bit more on our scores, and where we differ.

Regarding sharing flavor, we'll just have to make sure the things we'd put in PC-
Seanchan is "old" flavor - much of the Seanchan society seems to have resulted from a
synergy of the native and invading cultures. Things like the Empress and all that didn't
exist PC, for instance.

Regarding Portal Stones - the exotics are thought to have been brought to the continent
via the portal stones at some point in the past - that's why there were the "Armies of the
Night" there to fight the invading armies upon arrival. So, presumably, some PC-folks
went into the portals and brought back monsters.

Regarding the FY black hole - yes, they definitely could (and potentially should) fit
rigth within the FY. Remember that the "Era of Consolidation" (Era 4) represents the
era during which Hawkwing comes to power, and also sends his son off to begin the
conquest of the Seanchan continent. The most high profile moment in the entire PC
civilization - as far as the lore of the books - is their decades (centuries?) long battle
with Luthair's forces. The so-called "Armies of the Night" were a thing during this very
era 4.

Additionally, there's all of era 3, which is before the invasion - but still within the FY.
If anything, *this* is the real "black hole" - Hawkwing's empire doesn't truly exist yet,
but the Ten Nations civs are all dead. We have little nations like Aldeshar, and pre-
Hawkwing Shandalle, etc.

 

[counterpoint]

Having read all of the below, I think we're actually closer to agreement than may first
appear, but are approaching it from very different places. We'll see in more detail
below!

agreed. And this'll be a prime example of responding with one word for
every ten words posted....

This sort of jumps ahead of my more general stuff that's going to be outlined below,
but I don't think having uniques in this era is something we should avoid for the LB
civs (or even necessarily civs in general). I don't think the uniques always make
enough of a difference to have a kind of blue shell effect (awesome description!) in the
era they're unlocked in. Their advantages usually do more to affect the style of play of
the user, rather than strictly outclass enemy equivalents when pitted against them.

And one of the core complaints many people have with CiV (and its predecessors) is
that the endgame can be locked in for one player, but still take hours to play out. If
this upsets that definite outcome, then that should make the game more interesting.
The flipside of that is we do want to avoid players feeling like they did well the whole
game and then got swindled at the last minute (blue shell effect!). But, as above, I
don't think uniques will make that much of a difference.

In the event that I'm wrong, and they do make a big, game-changing difference, then it
would seem like balancing that effect is something we can do to avoid the endgame
lock-in. Either way seems like a good outcome to me.

I think I agree that we
don't have to disqualify uber-late game uniques. Of course, a late-game unique also
means that civ *doesn't* have a unique earlier in the game... so I say, treat this on a
case-by-case basis, and tread carefully when need be.

I strongly believe that this shouldn't be the case. It's different in that we designed it
and it's got relatively complex victory mechanics involved in it, but I don't think that
should make it structurally different as a victory condition from the others.

We definitely purposefully designed the LB to involve the contributions of multiple
different parts of the game, but that says to me that it's more like the other VCs, not
less, and that that was our objective in doing so. None of the VCs are completely
isolated from the contributions of others. Science aptitude, while clearly targeted at
the Science victory, can be used to get key Culture techs early (particularly
Archaeology) and get a Culture lead into a Culture victory that way. Social Policies,
which are the source of major benefits for Culture players, have a bunch of Policies
that help with the Diplo and Scientific victories (often directly), despite being part of
the "Culture system". Each CS, whose allegiance is "a part of" the Diplo victory as the
primary source of votes, also provides relevant yields for working towards the Culture
victory, and units towards Domination. When Culture players are faced with
opponents who also have high Culture output, then their fastest recourse is to destroy
that particular civ militarily, which requires they invest in the Domination "aspects" of
the game. Looping back around, Science aptitude means you'll have more advanced
units than your opponents, contributing easily toward a Domination victory.
Domination focus allows you to quickly capture CSes that afford your opponents key
votes as well as completing many of the quests that CSes offer (particularly Barb camp
ones, which yield a lot) which can facilitate a Diplo victory.

The list goes on for how all of the existing BNW victories are intertwined, and how
each mechanic that is a part of the "system" for each of those victories is also useful to
players on track for the other victories. This totally means to me that the LB's
interconnectedness is something that makes it more like the other BNW victories, and
not a special case that we should consider differently. Particularly since it does have
its own unique systems (Alignment, TW, LB event itself) that are contributed to
effectively by the other victory tracks, like the others do.

In terms of the Kamehameha and Shaka examples being a truism, that's basically my
point. Civs with LB-focused uniques will tend to try to win the LB victory if they are
in a dominant position to influence when and how it happens. (Which is part of why
we've got the triggering mechanics set up so that powerful players can influence the
LB's happening.) Other players reacting to this by preparing for an LB when they see a
civ who's visibly focusing on the LB victory (not necessarily visibly chosen any
particular Alignment - they may just be hunting all the Seals when they become
available) is exactly the same kind of response that we're both talking about here to
Kamehameha and Shaka trying to win their respective victories.

In terms of the actual complexity of the victory condition itself, as I touched on above,
I don't think that should make it structurally different from the other VCs. That only
affects the actual turn-by-turn decisions and the useful mechanics during the actual
execution of that VC. And that complexity largely stems from a couple of factors: our
desire to match the flavor of the books and our intent to do something recognizably
different from the other VCs, but still connected to existing systems. Neither of those
motivate us to make the LB a secondary victory condition.

If anything, being a secondary condition available "after" the other ones could damage
its contributions to the player experience. I could see the LB being viewed as a
"consolation" victory after failing to win a "normal" one, if it were balanced in such a
way that players should never focus on it directly, but deal with it when it appears.
This is the shiny new victory condition that we've made for the mod, and it's something
that fans will want to actively try to experience, and we don't want to put roadblocks in
the form of other victory conditions in front of that experience.

This is part of the problem with the Time victory condition (though not the only
problem, Time is also very uninspired in terms of mechanics - someone just "wins" by
having the highest number in not very accurately representative expression of
civilization progress). Its existence solely as something that's solely there to act as a
tiebreak before the game becomes unbalanced means that even getting to it means
players have failed at their original objectives, which isn't the kind of thing we want for
the LB.

By not being something that's a part of player's game plan going into the endgame, then
the LB itself also risks become a serious blue shell factor (much more so than uniques
placement, which we're discussing above). It comes with a lot of variables that can
unseat a dominant player, and that makes me think that going into it with the intention
of winning that way should be something players should be able to focus on.

OK, to trivialize the whole thing - I gotcha. I don't necessarily agree, but I also don't
really disagree so strongly, so I guess I... unagree?

I've said a lot of points on this matter, some of which I still stand by and think are valid,
but you've also said many points, many of which are also valid. I think, ultimately,
we're talking a difference in perspective. That *could* be a bit deal, but ultimately in
this case I don't think it is. We will both be there to "audit" any uniques that are
proposed and create, and make sure it passed both of our "smell tests."

True, I suppose I'm somewhat "passing the buck" to future versions of us, but, as you
note here, we're looking at only a few civs that will really take advantage of these
mechanics anyways, so I feel pretty comfortable wading through these waters on
specific cases, where things aren't so abstract and "philosophical" (which, I suppose, is
really wherein our disagreement lies).

Besides, it seems moot, as we may have both settled on a pretty similar target (option
4, maybe 5).

I'll note specifically on your Time victory comparison. I definitely don't want the LB to
feel like a time victory - it looks like that won't be the case, based on a lot we're
deciding here.

This is definitely the biggest thing that gives me pause when considering Alignment-
specific uniques (Light-only or Shadow-only). Our efforts thus far have definitely
been to make sure that a civ's intended Alignment isn't externally visible to other
players throughout the course of the game until the choice when the LB itself starts.

The main thing that pulls me the other way is the specific mechanics that exist on both
sides of the LB that then become impossible to create uniques for. There's a lot of
very interesting and flavor-applicable design space there for us to have uniques, but we
would be locking them out completely. The risk there is that these mechanics will feel
too samey, because civ variety doesn't affect the way in which they work. (The LB's
inherent complexity is, however, relevant at this level of consideration and reduces
samey-ness through that complexity.)

You've touched on this list with the examples in option #5 above, though I would like
to consider a full list of such mechanics so that we know what we're setting up for by
not using them. Full list, as far as I can find/remember:

• The Dragon (bonuses while you use him, effects that make his abilities work better
  or worse in any situations, )
• Shadowspawn effects (UU Shadowspawn, effects that either specifically combat or
  power up Shadowspawn, the same kinds of things with the Forsaken)
• Most things to do with Thakan'dar
• Alignment dampening effects (things that make your Alignment change less, pushing
  you Neutral)
• The Dragon's Peace group treaty (conferring bonuses to yourself or other civs that
  are part of the treaty for a Light ability, or somehow minimizing its effects for a
  Shadow ability, anything that interacts with the various Light-side projects or one way
  trade routes)
• Interactions with Turning the Tower (helping or hindering that process, matches up
  to obvious sides)
• Any interactions with Black Ajah Sisters

I think it was by deliberate ommission (sinc eyou talk about it all below), but there are
some additional LB-related mechanics, that should be here if this is to be considered a
"full list."

• alignment-related yields in the LB (i.e., your "rewards" for your alignment)
• the cleansing
• interactions with seals (finding them, hiding them, protecting them, spying them,
  destroying them, and consequences of destroying them)
• the trolloc wars

A very convincing argument can be made for Shadowspawn-combating abilities (things
that make your civ better at fighting Shadowspawn) being Alignment-agnostic, since
for the majority of the game, Shadowspawn are enemies of all players. But during the
LB itself, having against-Shadowspawn bonuses tilts you Light, since Shadow players
make peace with the Shadowspawn civ, which largely nullifies that bonus. Other
Shadow players can have Shadowspawn units, but given how they unlock, they
will be much less prevalent than for Light civs, who will be fending off waves of them
as a part of how the LB works.

I'd say whether a shadowspawn-related unique is
alignment-specific or alignment-neutral will depend entirely on the ability itself. It
COULD be neutral, but it could also be very much specific.I'm in favor of the former,
obviously.

Also, arguably, things that boost Alignment yield, even if in both directions, sort of fall
into category 5, because they push the player away from playing Neutral. Avoiding
this kind of effect entirely doesn't seem like something we want to do, given how core
Alignment is to the LB victory itself.

Yeah, I can see your point. Though I'm still not loving the idea of "alignment-specific"
abilities, this is probably where I'd make a huge exception. It's true that alignment-
creating abilities (even if working for both light and shadow) go counter to Neutrality,
which is thus a "side," this might be a worthy concession, in the interest of using the
mechanics at all. It certainly doesn't feel as drastic as a "sided" ability like "+10%
combat strength when controlling the dragon" or something like that.

I would say destroying Seals, as you mention, could potentially be category 4, since
both sides need to destroy them at some point, and doing so faster helps either of them
in their goal when doing so is good for them. It does tilt Shadow though, as you say,
because that becomes immediately relevant when the LB starts, whereas for Light
it would require them to do all of the finding/Dragoning first, where the ability doesn't
help.

Like shadowspawn, this one could be either 4 or 5. Definitely could likely be easily
made #4, though.

Another thing you mention is the Cleansing. As we discussed before, the sides of the
Cleansing tend to be linked to the Alignment choices of players, though not 100%.
This makes any uniques that interact with the Cleansing in a choice-specific way (for or
against) inherently LB-side-specific-leaning.

It's *related* to side, but that doesn't necessarily make it locked to side, or at least not
in as drastic a way as some other mechanics. We could have a unique for Aridhol that
gives you culture if you lose a city during the TW, for instance, or one that gives you
faith for every city liberated from the Shadow during the LB - true, these are Light-
shadow related, but their effects are only tangential til the ultimate LB. Probably this
perspective is warped by the fact that this event is early in the game, but for now, I feel
like some "stretching" of my hard-lined opposition to #5 might be possible with the
TW - again, case by case.

Overall, this seems like a lot of mechanics for us to leave on the table as inaccessible
to uniques. And it's also worth calling out that even if we go whole hog and go for
category 5, "side specific bonuses", with a civ count of 14 we'll only have two,
maybe three civs that interact with these systems. And not all (or even any) need
to go all the way to a side specific bonus. Maybe only one has a side-specific
bonus, and other(s) have ones that are useful no matter what side you pick. Maybe
none of the FLCs particularly push us toward a side-specific unique and we don't have
any. I think this distinct part of the decision will be up to what we want for the
specific civs, and I don't think we should disallow ourselves from considering these
mechanics to be a part of those civs, especially before we go through some and see
what kinds of ideas we have and where the flavor takes us.

Right. I see your point, but actually feel like it doesn't necessarily support including all
of these as options. You're right, we're looking at only a few civs that will really take
advantage of these mechanics - we have, certainly, more than enough alignment-
agnostic options that connect to the LB - it seems to me we have more than we'd
possibly end up using, based on the rough counts you've made so far. So, I don't really
see the need to "force" in the ones that are somewhat controversial... especially since,
because they're kind of controversial, they may be unlikely to survive the design
process anyways.

that said, I'm not saying I'm unwilling to consider this stuff, though - we just need to
lay some "ground rules" before we start designing, is all.

Looking through the above, I'm aware nothing specific calls out a reason to definitely
include side-specific uniques, and I think that's a result of the part of the process that
we're in. The motivation to include them will be a specific civ design, whose uniques
are side-specific and provide the player with a fun new experience while also capturing
cool, recognizable flavor from the books. We won't know what that is until we try to
design that civ, which is what makes me think we don't want to take the option off the
table now. Though we do want to decide now whether it's something we will consider
in general, otherwise the motivation from that one civ won't overcome the structural
discussion that needs to happen, which we're having now!

I'm not sure how this whole post has come together and if the sentiments of the
previous two paragraph seem contradictory. Just in case, the way I see it, we want to
decide now whether we will consider side-specific bonuses (or any of the levels you
outlined) in general, because without that decision we'll be hamstrung in the designing
of the civs about whether to include such possibilities. But we don't want to decide
that we will definitely 100% have side-specific bonuses in the FLCs, since the FLCs
we use may not lend themselves to that or we may have alternatives that we think are
better for other reasons. So we're basically deciding whether or not side-specific
bonuses are an option, is my take on it.

All right. Here's where I've landed: I say we should definitely do #4 - LB-related
mechanics, that are side-agnostic.

As far as #5, I still don't feel compelled to include them in general, for reasons
that I went into exhaustively before. In short, I think they cause some complications
that might not be worth it. However, I'm willing to consider them ad hoc, with the
preference that we always skew them as agnostic as possible. I suppose, for me, the
distinction is in the options we present - If one of us is presenting an "LB civ" and
providing possible uniques, I most definitely don't want to have the only LB-related
option on the table be side-specific. Go ahead and propose one, but also try to propose
a side-agnostic version of it for us to consider.

In short, I suggest we more-or-less go with "#4", but entertain specific cases of #5,
when it seems particularly compelling or necessary.

I think a lot of this is covered above, but another thing that comes up here is our
previous discussion of the LB as a replacement for the Time victory, and therefore
being a catch-all. I realize now that that wasn't quite the right way to frame it. I think
the actual winning of the game through the LB should be balanced to occur alongside
the other victory conditions, for all the reasons above. But the game can't go on
forever, because it can't be balanced in perpetuity (or at least we choose not to take on
the task of trying to make it so). Firaxis' solution to that is the Time victory, that
forces the game to end before the balance falls out of whack after the endgame. This
has always felt disappointing to me, that someone "wins by default", and earlier in the
topic we discussed a loss for all players as our replacement for that endpoint. I think
the LB allows us to lead into that, where a stalemated game results in all of the player
civs being gradually eliminated by the Shadowspawn civ (they've all failed to win, after
all).

Obviously this won't happen very often, but it's a continuation of the flavor of the LB
that allows us to have a defined endpoint to the game. It doesn't conflict with the
notion of the actual LB victory being balanced directly against the other VCs though.

Yeah, the Time victory should probably just be cut from our game. The LB is
not supposed to be our version of that - it replaces that.

If we put an end-date on the LB, I'd say *everybody loses*. (the Great Lord destroys the
pattern or something).

Does that mean we eliminate score? Or keep it on as a novelty?

Right, the main concern here is whether or not playing along with type creates design
problems. I'm saying here (I think, it was a long time ago!) that the existence of the
possibility of playing against type is what makes this not the problem it may first
appear. (The AI can play against type as well, particularly here, where we're going to
be defining all new AI logic for how it interacts with the LB.) We're worried that
having Alignment-specific uniques will telegraph to other players what Alignment the
civ will take in a given game. But it doesn't tell other players anything about what the
civ is actually doing right now, in this game. It provides them a suspicion to try to
confirm, which I think is something players will want to be doing anyway (trying to
work out which side each player is going to pick this game, and how that might affect
their choice). The processes they go through to make that confirmation will be the
same regardless, though it may affect which types of assessments they make (look for
Light-indicators first in a civ with Light-related bonuses). I think that distinction is
important and could make Alignment-specific uniques quite viable, particularly
considering all of the mechanics that are unique to each side.

Understood. I
don't disagree.

I don't think the first part of the "worse" sentiment ("Shienar's in the game, better brace
for an LB") is possible, given the way the LB works. No one civ has the mechanical
opportunity to force an LB from a position of weakness (or at least, they shouldn't). If
Shienar becomes a dominant force in a given game, then the fact that they're an LB
focused civ means they're likely to go for the LB victory condition, at which point
other civs should prepare. This seems to be more in like with your first sentiment,
about needing to deal with them in the LB. If Shienar isn't doing well, then their
actions don't really affect the starting of the LB, certainly not as much as the more
powerful players can. So I think we've avoided that one.

"Shienar's in the game, he's choosing Light" is an interesting one. Related to what I've
said above, I think the thought process here should be more like "Shienar's in the game,
I should check that he's going Light". Shienar's uniques indicate to the player that
Light is likely, but tell them nothing about this Shienar's choices, so they need to
investigate (like this other civs), but they can focus their attention on things that would
indicate to them whether or not Shienar is doing Light stuff this game.

This makes me think that uniques specific to each side won't be the direct telegraph
we're concerned about.

At the risk of overtrivializing, I think we've covered this
above - I say something like this could come as a case-by-case consideration. I see your
points, certainly.

In general, I wouldn't want to go lower than #4, and I think #5 is quite doable, and
potentially desirable. The reasons for those choices are elsewhere in this post.

But as I've touched on above, even if we go with #5 here as something that's
acceptable, the actual "#5" attributes of side-specific stuff may only affect one civ or
one unique of a single civ, or possibly none at all, in our FLCs.

Yeah, I've laid out my leaning above. I think we're pretty similar, though it looks like
you're thinking more of including #5 broadly, and approaching it as a case-by-case,
while I'm suggesting we *not* include it broadly, but approach and consider it on a
case-by-case basis.

I don't think this is something we should avoid, and the reasons tie into a lot of the
above, with treating the LB structurally like the other victory conditions. If a civ has
LB related uniques and the game ends before the LB happens, or before they can
properly leverage their uniques during the LB, then that's just a symptom of that player
not playing well in that particular game, not that the civ is badly designed. The player
was unable to maneuver the game into a position where their uniques provided them
advantage. (Much like a civ whose UUs are in the Medieval era getting conquered in
the Classical era, they failed to get themselves into the right position for those uniques
to help.)

Eh.... I understand the point, though I don't think this is 100% the same as, say, a civ
losing before their era comes up. The LB is an entirely distinct "game phase," not just
an era. Say, for instance, your has an LB-related unique, that only effects the LB's
mechanics itself - i.e., it only helps with Seals or something. There's no way to leverage
that into some *other* VC, say, before the LB happens at all. With all other uniques -
as far as I can tell - there's some use for it outside of a very narrow single VC. A good
UU, for instance, helps with Dom, but also can leverage economic/CS dominance, a
culture victory via conquering wonders, and so on. Whether you play against type or
not, there are typically many possible VCs associated with essentially every Unique out
there. Were we to have a Seals-only Unique, without any sort of other, more generic
benefit, it wouldn't be useful to a player trying to win before the LB starts (which is,
truthfully, the simplest victory path in most cases, for obvious reasons), nor might it be
useful in situations where the LB has configured itself in an unusual way.

I should note that this doesn't apply to ALL LB-related potential uniques, but certainly
some of them - most especially the late-game only, overtly specific (using the Dragon,
etc.), often alignment-based uniques. Very easy to do LB-focused uniques that don't
suffer from this problem.

The overall civ approach to this plays a lot into the synergy stuff we're discussing
elsewhere. I've seen many complaints about Byzantium in BNW that is somewhat like
this (and I believe we've discussed it earlier in the topic already). Byzantium's UA
makes your religion better, but nothing of its other uniques helps you get a
religion in the early game, which can lead to you being locked out of your UA's bonus
(by civs with more effective early religion, like the Celts and Ethiopia). A lot of
players call this out as a design issue with Byzantium and in general I'm inclined to
agree. But the issue isn't that the UA does what it does (an extra Belief is a cool UA!),
it's that the other uniques don't help it, so players can miss out entirely on the UA's
bonus.

This specific issue is mechanically unique to the Religion system and how max
religions interacts with the early game, but the general structure is instructive for LB
focused civs. I don't think we want to avoid uniques that are LB-mechanic-specific
(stuff that destroys Seals, or any of the other things that we've mentioned above).
What we want to keep in mind is that if we do have such uniques, the civ's other
uniques should help them get to a position where they're useful. (In our Byzantium
example, if they had an early UB that produced Faith.)

understood, and agreed
re: Byzantium. The difference is as I stated above - Byzantium's UA is problematic, but
at least it can be linked to multiple VCs. This wouldn't be the case with some LB-
related abilities. Another reason while, despite any design philosphy we might embrace,
ultimately the "locking out of other Victory types for the Light" means we DO have to
treat the LB victory type as somewhat "separate" from the others - for many players, it
becomes *the only VC path available* in the game at a certain point. That's a huge
difference from other VCs.

I don't think we want to do this, and my reasoning is pretty much all above. I think it's
worth reiterating that making our new victory condition, that players will want to
experience as fans of the books, something that's secondary to the existing victory
conditions risks making it a lot less fun than it should be - something that interrupts
and foils the player's plans, rather than something they work towards.

I mostly
can back down off this assertion, as long as the other caveats suggested above can be
made to make work - ultimately, "secondary" and "primary" is chiefly theoretical
anyways. If we make uniques that pass our tests, it doesn't matter which is primary or
secondary. The issue above on "secondary functionality" of LB-related uniques, if dealt
with, will likely resolve my concerns on this topic.

 

[counterpoint]

Jumping back briefly to the LB stuff, this is a good example of somewhere that the
flavor can take us to a side-specific bonus. The details of that are in my previous post
though.

It's also possible to make such a bonus (likely a UA) different on each side. If
you're on the Light side, it changes how you interact with the Dragon somehow, if on
the Shadow side, it has a different Dragon-related effect. Certainly a possibility.

Yeah, I think the key thing about the Aiel is that we really don't need to make
them LB-focused - we have so, so much to go on with them. Besides, I'm guessing
some players will want to play as "Shadow Aiel" sometimes...

Also, I'll say I don't have a huge problem with having "both side" Uniques. Like, a UU
that has "+10% combat strength against Shadowspawn and +10% combat strength
when adjacent to an allied Shadowspawn," as one example. It leaves out Neutrality,
theoretically, but that sort of thing is far less awful than full-on sidedness, IMO.

Again, case-by-case (and in the case of the Aiel, I say it's unnecessary.

I like your approach of averaging our scores to get a final result that means both of our
assessments contribute. I don't feel like any of the differences are significant enough
to warrant discussing changing them up or down beyond what we've both given so far,
so rather than go through all of your individually, I'll just say I agree overall!

So I've just pulled out a few quote blocks that I think have useful discussions, but
otherwise I'll skip over everything that's just a simple agreement. And then on to the
leaderboard!

You trivializing bastard!

also, lol at "leaderboard"

Yeah, whether a TW bonus would actually end up contributing to the LB VC would
depend on the nature of that bonus. It's certainly a good way to capture flavor and
integrate the mod well into the game to use our new mechanics to fuel strategies for
the existing victory conditions!

re: Manetheren.

Yeah, case by case!

This is about the Seanchan.

My views on the LB stuff are above, but this stood out to me. Neutral is a side in the
LB, but only a side that's particularly useful to civs who are pursuing other victory
conditions. You can't win the LB victory by picking Neutral. So when I say the
"definition of Neutral" excludes them from being an LB pursuing civ, that's because if
we design them in line with this particular flavor, then they will specifically be
encouraged to pick the side that doesn't let them win the LB victory. Hence, they're
not an LB victory focused civ. That seems to be the point of the Neutral side, to me.

right. Agreed. Also, a neutral-oriented civ in the LB isn't likely to be all that
fun, honestly...

ever tried to play "true neutral" in old D&D...?

Like Traveling being used as a common flavor for a couple of different mechanics, I
don't see the existence of the Shadar Logoth mechanics as something that precludes us
from hinting at Aridhol's Logoth-ness in the lore as a part of an Aridhol civ. We would
want to avoid things that cause obvious paradoxes (allowing Aridhol to transform one
of its own cities into an "extra Shadar Logoth" or some such), but as long as there's no
redundancy in the way the ability/unique interacts with the Shadar Logoth system, then
it seems totally fine.

I would say we should be asking: "Why must it be Shadar Logoth if its uniques are
related to the Cleansing?"

Rough examples (not actual suggestions, just examples of how that non-conflict can be
achieved):

UA: Communed with Shadow
Contributions Aridhol makes to the anti-Cleansing project are doubled.
(LB side issues and the utility of such a UA notwithstanding, this clearly nods to
Aridhol being Shadar Logoth in the books, but has no in-game redundancy with the
Logoth system as we've designed it.)

UU: Ruby Dagger Thieves
Unit has double combat strength within 10 hexes of Shadar Logoth, but takes 5 damage
per turn every turn it spends more than 15 hexes away from Shadar Logoth.

UA: Where the Shadow Waits
Units controlled by Aridhol do double damage when attacking units that have the
"Cleanse Saidin" mission available.

UB: Channeling Focus
Contributions to either Cleansing project from this city are doubled. (+ some yield, for
normal building utility)

(crazy) UA: Where the Shadow Waits
When Shadar Logoth is destroyed, one of Aridhol's cities (of the player's choice)
becomes Shadar Logoth in its place and Aridhol gains control of Mashadar.

(also crazy) UA: Where the Shadow Waits
Aridhol may make peace and ally with the Shadar Logoth city state (which provides
some bizarre, flavorfully appropriate double-edged sword of a bonus of our choice).

ooh, those ARE crazy. The last one in particular is kind of fun...

In any case, we've talked the abstract-aspect of SL/Aridhol to death at this point. Not
much needs to be said. Case by case, is the way to go, IMO. It's not appropriate for me
to assert any blanket statements over the propriety of Ar's link to SL - if a proposed
unique works, it works. So, tackle it later.

It's Far Madding they look grim for, right?

Yeah, Mayene's sitting pretty.

Poor Murandy!

That's the national motto, right?

I think between starting some civs' flavor a bit early
(Era of Nations civs) and having low tech stuff there (we'll likely want some things to
unlock very early for mechanical reasons for some civs as well) then we should be able
to cover Era 1 ok.

hopefully you're right.

I'm liking the list of 20! I do slightly worry about including Aramaelle and not
including Saldaea and Arad Doman. Still, considering how many civs we've gone
through, for that to be my only worry speaks highly of our process!

As I've touched on in my latest set of posts, I'm fine with designing all 20 in order to
help us pare it down to an FLC list of 14. (I also think that it's awesome that we've
got 31 civs to consider at this point, and there are still more that we're not using, even
if they would be a bit light on flavor!)

yeah, no kidding. 31 is a lot. A few
months back in one of the other threads here, someone was asking about any fantasy
mods out there. I chimed in that we were developing this. They discounted it as an idea
that couldn't work, because their weren't enough civs to choose from in WoT...

Related to these rankings, I like them (as mentioned above) but I think it's worth doing
a quick assessment of what the rankings look like if we give a weighting to
prominence. I did this in Excel (and saved it to the DropBox), and so reproduced the
original rankings as well since it was easy to do. I noticed that your rankings seem to
have the Sea Folk down at 12.5, even though it looks like they should be at 16.5?

cool!

Not sure what to say about the Sea folk... not sure what happened there.

Also, your final list of 20 appears to have Manetheren listed twice (so there are only 19
civs there). From the unweighted scores, that would mean Far Madding is now up for
consideration as #20. If we choose to DQ Far Madding so we don't have two CS-
flavor civs as FLCs, then Arad Doman or Saldaea comes in (both tied at 12).[/quote]
oy! how'd that happen?

Back to the weighting, for a rough estimate, I'll go with "prominence counts for
double":

<<INSERT LOGIC>>

Final list from that:

Seanchan
The Aiel
Shandalle
Sea Folk
Shara
Malkier
Manetheren
Shienar
Prophet Ghealdan
Mayene
Andor
Tear
Tarabon
Illian
Cairhien
Children Amadicia
Aridhol
Altara
Aramaelle
Far Madding
(P-C Seanchan)

Which was all a lot of work... to end up with the same list! Some of the order
changed, but none of them dropped off the end of the list.

In terms of DQing civs, I think P-C Seanchan is the main potential DQ to consider not
doing. I would be inclined to include them over Far Madding. What about you?
Does the Aldeshar campaign live on?

In terms of next steps for the process, I'll go into that below where you've put a
suggestion for a list of steps in your next post!

hmmm... I agree that PC Seanchan is the only fringe one that is worth considering. I
definitely can see the logic in at least trying the initial design of it before we kill it. I
think Far Madding is a fair one to abandon.
But then of course that means, as you say, that Saldaea, Arad Doman, and also Aldeshar
are cut.... Are these three civs worth keeping around for a little while, just so we cover
our bases (making our number, it seems, 23)? 20 is, after all, somewhat of an
arbitrarily-defined number. It seems like 23 may be the list we "feel good about." I
think part of the trickiness comes from some civs (Aramaelle) being included at the
expense of some that win the prominence war (e.g. Arad Doman).

Probably fine with not including Far Madding... but also fine with including it.

Finale here too! Also thanks for the patience! I hope
for shorter replies for us to get better turnaround times, but when we get to designing
the actual civs, this will likely explode out into a massive series of quote blocks again!

Yay! More on the speed of things below...

This seems like a good plan for moving forward. It looks like all of our rankings
posts for individual civs should collapse down shortly and we'll be left with the big
things (LB seems like it may be the most involved thing left, 3 uniques looks like it's
much more straightforward below).

Yeah, I'm hoping that even the LB isn't
*that* much more to hash out.

I think we've sort of already completed step #2, I'm happy with the list of 20 civs from
our posts above, and that seems to be what you're suggesting as well. (Barring
possible shuffling of one or two civs near the end - Far Madding, PreConsolidation
Seanchan, Arad Doman, Saldaea, and Aldeshar all competing for slot #20!)

Also, just to be sure, "civ traits" in step #3 doesn't refer to UAs, right? (CiV itself
often refers to UAs as traits, but given the context I don't think that's what you mean.)

By civ traits I mean "any of the things discussed above." That is to say, if we decide we
need more science ones in the mix, we tweak some (perhaps stretching the flavor) to
make them sciencey.

But yes, I'd say we're on step 3 now. So, how should we go about that? I suppose its
just an issue of regurgitating the list (of 20 or however many) and including the semi-
agreed-upon characteristics, e.g. something like this:

America (Era 4-6, Wide, Domination/Cultural, no bias)

Is that enough info? I didn't want to do the list now because there are some things still
in contention - namely, the LB stuff, which could conceivably affect this. What shall
we do about the civs that we didn't agree on (as far as VCs, etc.). We could bounce
back and forth, but this is general and vague enough that it might not be worth the time
- I suppose we're just looking to see that we do, in fact, have a "healthy spread" of
things. So, I'd be fine if things weren't nailed down in this stage.

From there, we consider the whole, and tweak as necessary. I'm guessing this will just
be one round of posts.

I would also say that after step #5 we may be able to eliminate some more civs from
FLC candidacy, since we'll have explored their options more by that point and have a
better idea of the big picture of our VC distribution and other inclusion factors.
(There seems to be an implicit elimination step between #6 and #7, where we pare
down to the final FLC count, which also sounds good to me!)

For sure there is an elimination step between 6 and 7, but yeah, we could conceivably
do so at 5, or 6.

Step 4 is the next big deal - more on that below.

This is definitely a big decision. And it seems strange that we don't really have
anything big swinging us one way or the other. If it's any indication, there is (or at
least was) a mod that adds an extra unique to all of the base game civs that was quite
popular, so at least some players are enthused by the idea.

I agree that it's cooler, and should make the civs feel more distinct from each other as
well. The difficulty mostly seems to be frontloaded on us - make the game still work
with more variables - players just get a more diverse experience.

I wouldn't be inclined to make one weaker than the others since most uniques are
replacements for stuff, so gimping one of them would feel like a penalty since they'd be
worse than the default unit/building being replaced. (If they weren't worse, then they
wouldn't be weaker than the other uniques, which often are similar-but-different to the
default units, not just better.)

I'd say let's go with 3 uniques!

I'm convinced that we don't need to gimp the
uniques.

Also, I agree - let's do 3 Uniques!

Could be, though I'd like to explore the UG route too! It's something for one of the
later steps now though.

case by case!

I was weighing the pros and cons of both approaches. Having "strange" (in BNW
terms) uniques be quite rare establishes a "normal" baseline for players and makes
those strange uniques stand out more. On the other hand, our players will be familiar
with CiV and its "normal" uniques. I wonder if having a larger proportion of our
uniques be strange ones would make the whole mod more engaging, because there's
always something very different to do.

wait for it...




wait for it...


wait...




case by case!

I think we just have to see where this leads us - I think there are benefits either way, so
it's hard to make a "policy" about it now.

Yeah, it's a good one!

Actually, though, as a unit, I didn't really like using
the turtle ship that much... I guess I was just avoiding wars at all cost at that stage in
the game, so it felt wasted (lol, turtling!)

Agreed, we can only do what we can - there won't be nonstandard unique flavor for a
lot of the civs. We may find ways around that by being inventive with their
interpretations - still true to the flavor, just not the most direct conversion of
melee/horseback as the books might at first suggest. It will be a case by case thing
anyway.

Yeah, it's likely that we'll have to "force the issue" in a few cases, by using the dregs of
some flavor to at least get a few more non-standard UU forms.

Your turn again! And hopefully this will get a lot shorter (relatively briefly) before
exploding back out into a flavor-dive-athon on the civs listed above!

OK! So, yeah, next steps. Obviously the "spread" stuff described above, but then is step
#4, which involves more detailed flavor-dive (though most of the flavor has already
been dived, in my above long posts!) and brainstorming.

I suggest we actually not let it get to really long post blocks and stuff. I think
things have slowed down to an almost painful pace in the past month, and I'm actually
concerned that if we keep that up, we'll be essentially killing this mod.

I feel like, while in some ways it's nice to sit and think about a post for days, and have
tons of time in between replies (which is what I've done here, written parts of this days
ago), I feel like we're at our most effective when we're hashing through things more
quickly. I know of course that this is my fault, as I launched a huge framing post, but at
this point we're at a different point in the conversation.

So, I'm wondering if the best thing to do is to break things up into small groups, maybe
four or five civs, grouped together either logically, randomly, or otherwise arbitrarily.
From there, one of us does an initial "pitch" on the civs, then we whack them back and
forth until we have at least something decent, and then we move on to the next group.

While I think this method might make it easy to miss the forest for the trees, and forget
the big picture of things, I think it'll go a long way towards keeping things moving, and
also, preventing fatigue. If I learned anything doing the tech tree madness from around
era 1-5, its that my ideas in era 5 were way worse than in the earlier eras. I'm worried
that if we did a pass through all the civs, and then whacked that back and forth, the last
5, 10, or 15 civs may not be our best material (also, the quote blocks would be huge,
as would be the wait times between posting). So, long story less long: shall we break
them into small groups?

As far as what those initial brainstorms could be, I'm thinking we keep it pretty simple.
You *can* suggest mechanics, but you don't need to (though for UAs, you may at least
have to somewhat suggest them) - certainly don't get to specific. Of course, if you *do*
have a cool specific idea (especially with UA's), share it - but don't waste too much
time on it. We're not looking for details here. So, something like this:

Mereen (Era 5-7, Tall, Diplomatic/Cultural, plains)

UAs:
something based on slavery or freedom from it (food, production, happiness?)
Way of the Harpy (cultural bonuses when at peace?)
For the Mhysa (culture or happiness when spreading a Path)

UUs:
Pitfighter (Melee 4-5)
Unsullied (Polearm 5-7)
Son of the Harpy (Melee 7)
Great Master (Merchant Lord)
Sellsword (Melee 5-7, can only be purchased)

UBs:
Fighting Pits (happiness and XP?)
Pyramid (?)

UIs:
Pyramid
Sellsword Camp

In any case, you get the idea. Does that seem like enough? I figure we'd bat each one
back and forth a few times, eliminate a few that we really don't like, perhaps add a few,
and leave each with a collection of a few good options for each category (3? 4?). So,
I'm not suggesting at this phase we necessarily actually *decide* on which one works
(though we could). That could be the next stage.

Thoughts on that process?

OK, I think that's where I end!

 

[S3rgeus]

Did someone request some speed?

I'll start by saying that there are a number of quote blocks that I'll either be ignoring or
otherwise trivializing. There was a *lot* of repetition in my previous post to you, and
that has provoked a lot of repetition in your posts, so there isn't need to respond to
everything. Also, on some of the bigger blocks, you might see some things akin "oh,
ok, sure!" instead of a longer response. I think at this point we've made some in depth
arguments on things, and it's not necessarily necessary (yay English!) to elaborate as
much on this time around.

The speed is picking up already, given that you've replied to the whole thing in an evening! (Even if you did write some posts earlier, as you mention below).

Also, what did you write this post with? Some super weird formatting seems to have taken over and everything in your post has newlines mid-sentence (it seems to be constrained to staying within a certain line length).

It's cool, we're still set for our 2021 release
date.

Woah, 2021!? Let's not get ahead of ourselves!

yeah, you're ahead of me... but in related
news, Germany. *daaaamn* that was one of the most unbalanced dom victors I've ever
won on Emperor. The first time I ever went above the supply cap...

Yeah, Germany and the Ottomans do some crazy stuff with those UAs! I started (didn't finish) a game with the Ottomans and had the same experience - the first time I ever went over the supply cap.

This is a good example of something I put out there like 700 times before, and you've
had to painfully respond 800 times. So, simply:

I agree. If we *eliminate* it, don't design, otherwise, design em! (at least in the big
picture)

Awesome, sounds good!

Interesting! Mumbo-jumbo it is! This is interesting, all the talk of "Grand Strategic AI"
- I suppose that kind of thing is the "VC leaning" of a civ - is that a fixed thing that's
actually attached to a civ's code, or is it more ad hoc, as each game is created?

The grand strategic AI is a part of the AI logic, so it evaluates and changes plans in each game. It's the part of the AI that decides broadly what victory it's going for and what kind of strategy it will use to get there. (It is not particularly good at focusing a civ towards that goal though.)

Yeah yeah yeah, I kniw how to spull

Spulling mportnt!

I think I'm in agreement here, so, we're disqualifying it as an FLC, yes? That means we
won't continue to design it.

Agreed, DQing Two Rivers, for the reasons above.

I should say, though, that the "I wouldn't be inclined to specifically redistribute its
flavor" thing is a pretty big thing. I think, probably, I agree. It would be cool to have
Longbows and such, but on the other hand, *not* having them solves a few problems,
most notably, it keeps our options open on a future TR civ. So, I'm not sure we have to
decide this 100% now - we'll see how easy it is to come up with Manetheren/Andor
UUs, for instance - but I'd say, yes, for now let's aim to not redistribute TR flavor.

I suppose the one thing that gives me some pause is the whole "some people might
expect them, and might be disappointed" thing. Not sure what else to suggest though - I
suspect our rationale for not including them should be somewhat obvious.

Ours scores are more or less within expected variance.

I agree here as well - let's leave the Two Rivers' flavor aside for now, to keep the options open. I feel like the TR-specific flavor would also feel a bit out of place in either Andor or Manetheren, since they should have their own well defined flavor as well.

This is re: Alliandre, aka, "Minor Character Masquerading as Major Character" (lol,
sorry). In any case, somewhat moot for now - looks like Ghealdan is definitely passing
on to the next level. I make no claims to know what actually IS the best leader option
for Gh, so we can certainly entertain MCMaMC when we get there!

Is MCMaMC some kind of autocorrected Masema? Anywho, we'll be coming back to this later!

it's possible that we only want one, but I don't think we necessarily have to commit to
that now. Also, it's theoretically possible that Ghealdan could be the one that gives us
the awesome Uniques, and amadicia ends up kind of stale, thus letting Gh leap-frog
over Ama as an FLC...

Sounds good - both have gotten themselves into the running later, so we'll see!

I'm happy with moving forward on the LoM, but I could also see us cutting it for now.
It does seem to be something that we want - but probably categorically not as an FLC. I
guess it depends on if we think it'd still be helpful to delve in deeper. (noting very close
scoring as well)

It looks like we've come down on the side of DQing the Isle of Madmen in the rankings stuff later.

agreed.

I'll explain a bit more on our scores, and where we differ.

Regarding sharing flavor, we'll just have to make sure the things we'd put in PC-
Seanchan is "old" flavor - much of the Seanchan society seems to have resulted from a
synergy of the native and invading cultures. Things like the Empress and all that didn't
exist PC, for instance.

Regarding Portal Stones - the exotics are thought to have been brought to the continent
via the portal stones at some point in the past - that's why there were the "Armies of the
Night" there to fight the invading armies upon arrival. So, presumably, some PC-folks
went into the portals and brought back monsters.

Regarding the FY black hole - yes, they definitely could (and potentially should) fit
rigth within the FY. Remember that the "Era of Consolidation" (Era 4) represents the
era during which Hawkwing comes to power, and also sends his son off to begin the
conquest of the Seanchan continent. The most high profile moment in the entire PC
civilization - as far as the lore of the books - is their decades (centuries?) long battle
with Luthair's forces. The so-called "Armies of the Night" were a thing during this very
era 4.

Additionally, there's all of era 3, which is before the invasion - but still within the FY.
If anything, *this* is the real "black hole" - Hawkwing's empire doesn't truly exist yet,
but the Ten Nations civs are all dead. We have little nations like Aldeshar, and pre-
Hawkwing Shandalle, etc.

It looks like they've wrangled their way into the top 20 below, so we'll know more when we design them in more detail. All good stuff here!

 

[S3rgeus]

OK, to trivialize the whole thing - I gotcha. I don't necessarily agree, but I also don't
really disagree so strongly, so I guess I... unagree?

I've said a lot of points on this matter, some of which I still stand by and think are valid,
but you've also said many points, many of which are also valid. I think, ultimately,
we're talking a difference in perspective. That *could* be a bit deal, but ultimately in
this case I don't think it is. We will both be there to "audit" any uniques that are
proposed and create, and make sure it passed both of our "smell tests."

True, I suppose I'm somewhat "passing the buck" to future versions of us, but, as you
note here, we're looking at only a few civs that will really take advantage of these
mechanics anyways, so I feel pretty comfortable wading through these waters on
specific cases, where things aren't so abstract and "philosophical" (which, I suppose, is
really wherein our disagreement lies).

Besides, it seems moot, as we may have both settled on a pretty similar target (option
4, maybe 5).

Writing this out of order, I've ended up covering a lot of my response to this below. Sorry for the trivialized quote block! Feel free to revive any points from here if they've been skipped over.

I'll note specifically on your Time victory comparison. I definitely don't want the LB to
feel like a time victory - it looks like that won't be the case, based on a lot we're
deciding here.

Awesome, that's a major structure thing we agree on!

I think it was by deliberate ommission (sinc eyou talk about it all below), but there are
some additional LB-related mechanics, that should be here if this is to be considered a
"full list."

• alignment-related yields in the LB (i.e., your "rewards" for your alignment)
• the cleansing
• interactions with seals (finding them, hiding them, protecting them, spying them,
  destroying them, and consequences of destroying them)
• the trolloc wars

I'd say whether a shadowspawn-related unique is
alignment-specific or alignment-neutral will depend entirely on the ability itself. It
COULD be neutral, but it could also be very much specific.I'm in favor of the former,
obviously.

Yeah, these were deliberately omitted since their relationships to being side-specific were less clear cut. They're all definitely things to consider when making this decision though. I would say that finding Seals isn't side-specific, since both sides need to do that.

Right. I see your point, but actually feel like it doesn't necessarily support including all
of these as options. You're right, we're looking at only a few civs that will really take
advantage of these mechanics - we have, certainly, more than enough alignment-
agnostic options that connect to the LB - it seems to me we have more than we'd
possibly end up using, based on the rough counts you've made so far. So, I don't really
see the need to "force" in the ones that are somewhat controversial... especially since,
because they're kind of controversial, they may be unlikely to survive the design
process anyways.

that said, I'm not saying I'm unwilling to consider this stuff, though - we just need to
lay some "ground rules" before we start designing, is all.

...

All right. Here's where I've landed: I say we should definitely do #4 - LB-related
mechanics, that are side-agnostic.

As far as #5, I still don't feel compelled to include them in general, for reasons
that I went into exhaustively before. In short, I think they cause some complications
that might not be worth it. However, I'm willing to consider them ad hoc, with the
preference that we always skew them as agnostic as possible. I suppose, for me, the
distinction is in the options we present - If one of us is presenting an "LB civ" and
providing possible uniques, I most definitely don't want to have the only LB-related
option on the table be side-specific. Go ahead and propose one, but also try to propose
a side-agnostic version of it for us to consider.

In short, I suggest we more-or-less go with "#4", but entertain specific cases of #5,
when it seems particularly compelling or necessary.

I've combined these two separate quote blocks because it feels to me like they conflict with each other. I don't think we can offset the decision to the stage of designing specific civs if we want to have these ground rules established before we get to that stage.

I understand what you mean about having both of us to pass the "smell test" for any unique later on, but I worry that if we don't decide now, up front, that we want to allow side-specific uniques or not in the general case (as in, we'll consider them on equal footing with other proposed uniques) then no one individual unique will, by itself, be enough motivation for us to swing that decision towards side-specific. (We risk always refusing the first side-specific unique because at that point it would be the only one, and the same would continue to be true, even if we'd actually proposed 5 separate ones by that stage.) And then across all of the civs, we risk eroding some options from several of them, which may have ended up being some of our most engaging ones.

As we mentioned before, the more "directed" civs we see in BNW are often player favorites, even though their specialization effectively reduces player choice during a given game. I feel like side-specific uniques can capture that feeling very well.

I see your point about having enough flavor that we don't need to consider controversial uniques, and my main point here is that if we're going to consider them going forward, then side-specific uniques shouldn't be controversial.

And reiterating from last time, even if we do decide now that we will allow side-specific uniques in general, that doesn't guarantee that we'll come up with ones we want to use for any of our specific civs.

And even though making this decision now is potentially complicated, yet may yield no actual change in the resulting civs, we have no way of knowing whether it will or not until we've already made it, because not making that decision will bias the design process in favor of non-side-specific. Not that I think we will intentionally bias the design process, but that uncertainty will create an inherent bias from both of us - it will be easier to not address it.

Also, you mention above that there will be side-specific and non-side-specific variants on interactions between uniques and quite a few mechanics. I completely agree on that and I think making this decision now will let us consider those options in the space of which is the most fun, flavorful, and balanced, rather than needing to also consider whether side-specific is something we want to do. I think a lot of concerns about side-specific uniques may fall under the umbrella of balance - since the utility of some variants would be significantly reduced by them only being applicable/usable in very narrow circumstances (like a combat bonus to a unit when controlling the Dragon, this is only active a very small portion of the game, would be my main issue with such a unique), we would need to consider how that makes a given unique too weak. That feels to me like a separate issue to the general case we're discussing here.

You mention above that there are points you still stand by from your first post that would discourage us from using side-specific uniques. Would we be able to go through those specifically? Is there more detail from my last post that you feel doesn't address some of those points adequately?

There are pros and cons to both sides, but I feel that overall deciding to allow side-specific uniques is a good call. (You picked up that this was my opinion, but I've realized here that I never actually stated it clearly!)

Yeah, the Time victory should probably just be cut from our game. The LB is
not supposed to be our version of that - it replaces that.

If we put an end-date on the LB, I'd say *everybody loses*. (the Great Lord destroys the
pattern or something).

I can see this being a good approach.

I was also thinking that we could make it so that there isn't a hard limit on how long the game is, but that the LB continues to ramp up to such an extent that it becomes impossible for any civs to hang on. (This would require the Shadowspawn civ to somehow end up killing Shadow players though.) So that may be too complicated.

Does that mean we eliminate score? Or keep it on as a novelty?

I think we'll want to keep score anyway, since it lets players estimate their relative placement in the world. Though it might have interesting effects on the game if it's removed - causing human players to fall back on much more in-universe opinions of other players (and make them much more focused on reconnaissance).

Eh.... I understand the point, though I don't think this is 100% the same as, say, a civ
losing before their era comes up. The LB is an entirely distinct "game phase," not just
an era. Say, for instance, your has an LB-related unique, that only effects the LB's
mechanics itself - i.e., it only helps with Seals or something. There's no way to leverage
that into some *other* VC, say, before the LB happens at all. With all other uniques -
as far as I can tell - there's some use for it outside of a very narrow single VC. A good
UU, for instance, helps with Dom, but also can leverage economic/CS dominance, a
culture victory via conquering wonders, and so on. Whether you play against type or
not, there are typically many possible VCs associated with essentially every Unique out
there. Were we to have a Seals-only Unique, without any sort of other, more generic
benefit, it wouldn't be useful to a player trying to win before the LB starts (which is,
truthfully, the simplest victory path in most cases, for obvious reasons), nor might it be
useful in situations where the LB has configured itself in an unusual way.

I should note that this doesn't apply to ALL LB-related potential uniques, but certainly
some of them - most especially the late-game only, overtly specific (using the Dragon,
etc.), often alignment-based uniques. Very easy to do LB-focused uniques that don't
suffer from this problem.

As I've touched on above, I feel like this is a subtly different issue to the general case that we want to decide here. The issue with such uniques is that they need to be appropriately powerful even though they're available for only a short time, and the player can't be left feeling like they're playing a generics-only-civ until they reach a certain late game target - their other uniques should help them along the way to making the most specific one (if they have one unique that is useful only in quite specific circumstances, like when fighting/controlling the Dragon, or finding a Seal) useful as often as possible.

My comparison to an era and the LB being a game phase doesn't really capture what I'd intended. I didn't mean to compare an era as a portion of the game to the LB as a portion of the game. It's more about a specific civ reaching a certain era is a certain amount of progression within the game that that civ must achieve in order to leverage its uniques. For LB-specific uniques, it's the same kind of thing: the player must progress to a certain extent in order to be able to leverage them, and can be denied the opportunity to apply that leverage by another player progressing significantly faster than them (in the era analogy, that's another civ teching up faster and being able to kill them first; in the LB analogy that's someone else winning the game before the LB-specific civ is able to trigger the LB, meaning the other player was way ahead of them).

The considerations to keep in mind with that, is that if a civ has LB-specific uniques and its other uniques don't help it in getting to a position where those specific uniques are useful, then we've created another Byzantium. A mechanic-specific unique that the actions of other players can deprive the civ from leveraging, even though that civ has no given advantage in being able to reach the leverage-able situation. This is a problem with that civ, rather than LB-specific uniques in general.

In terms of LB specific uniques not being useful in pursuing other VCs, that can be true. However, I don't think that's a problem. Of course, it's more flexible for a civ to have uniques that can apply to multiple VCs, but that seems like something we should design intentionally as a part of that civ. We can make some civs be much more directed than others. BNW establishes that some unique components can contribute directly to only one VC, like Brazil's UA, which is almost useless if you're not going for the Culture victory (particularly the Tourism part, otherwise the extra GPs help with some CS quests and a couple of Golden Ages). (And then they go and put an achievement in for winning a Diplo victory with them!)

It's *related* to side, but that doesn't necessarily make it locked to side, or at least not
in as drastic a way as some other mechanics. We could have a unique for Aridhol that
gives you culture if you lose a city during the TW, for instance, or one that gives you
faith for every city liberated from the Shadow during the LB - true, these are Light-
shadow related, but their effects are only tangential til the ultimate LB. Probably this
perspective is warped by the fact that this event is early in the game, but for now, I feel
like some "stretching" of my hard-lined opposition to #5 might be possible with the
TW - again, case by case.

I definitely see what you mean about the TW, and given how early it is, players aren't particularly invested in one Alignment or the other at that point. Most bonuses that are TW-related are likely to be much more broad than ones that come later in the tree, just because of the foundational stage of the game that we're at.

I've pulled this particular block about Aridhol down in my post so that it's after the bigger LB stuff above, because I think it's a good example of how not deciding on whether we allow side-specific uniques will affect our thinking when we try to design individual civs. We know that avoiding the side-specific options means it will be less complex to design, which inherently pushes us in this direction. I think we should be considering, in this case, potential Aridhol uniques against each other in terms of fun, flavor, and balance rather than whether or not they're side-specific. (Not suggesting we do Aridhol now, that would throw the process out of whack, just using them as an example.)

understood, and agreed
re: Byzantium. The difference is as I stated above - Byzantium's UA is problematic, but
at least it can be linked to multiple VCs. This wouldn't be the case with some LB-
related abilities. Another reason while, despite any design philosphy we might embrace,
ultimately the "locking out of other Victory types for the Light" means we DO have to
treat the LB victory type as somewhat "separate" from the others - for many players, it
becomes *the only VC path available* in the game at a certain point. That's a huge
difference from other VCs.

I think I've covered the multiple VC applicability above.

"locking out other victories" for Light players is a very good point. But it seems to me like that's complexity at a different level of the game from the structural placement of the LB as something a given player tries to achieve as "their intended victory", rather than something that happens along the way of their attempting to win one of the BNW VCs.

Potential can of worms suggestion. I will make this brief, so we should feel it is distinctly appropriate, if we don't want to pursue it further, to just decide "no, let's not go into this" now.

What if the Light side of the LB wasn't a team victory, and didn't lock out the other VCs? The Light players compete in some non-military way to be the person who controls the Dragon unit, and the player who captures Thakan'dar with the Dragon is the Light winner.

There are difficulties with "why would they work together to take Thakan'dar", but that's something we could work out, if we go any further with this. It would also mean players could pivot back to other victories if things went sour, not being able to do so could potentially be very frustrating. It may also lead to modifying the Shadow victory as well (potentially no longer requiring another "normal" victory, and having some other requirement instead), which I do sort of worry is almost always more difficult than the Neutral path of "just win that victory".

Anyway, can of worms tipped just to the edge of being open, but still very closeable. If you don't think we should go through this all again, then please do say so and we can hold off. This has been sitting in the back of my mind for the last back and forths, so I figured it best to say!

I mostly
can back down off this assertion, as long as the other caveats suggested above can be
made to make work - ultimately, "secondary" and "primary" is chiefly theoretical
anyways. If we make uniques that pass our tests, it doesn't matter which is primary or
secondary. The issue above on "secondary functionality" of LB-related uniques, if dealt
with, will likely resolve my concerns on this topic.

Sounds good. In relation to "secondary functionality", this refers to LB-related uniques' applicability to other VCs? In the context of what I've said above about a lack of cross-applicability to other VCs not being a problem, I'm referring to the "possibility of such uniques" not being a problem. It becomes a problem if all of our civs can only effectively do one VC (regardless of what those VCs are). But having one or two civs that are much more focused than the rest is fine.

 

[S3rgeus]

Yeah, I think the key thing about the Aiel is that we really don't need to make
them LB-focused - we have so, so much to go on with them. Besides, I'm guessing
some players will want to play as "Shadow Aiel" sometimes...

Last comment about my LB stuff above, this is also another good example of how not deciding affects our designs. We don't need to make them LB focused, which is totally true. And I think it will always be true, but not necessarily best. I think we should decide on whether or not we do make a civ LB-focused based on how much we like the uniques that each approach offers (as well as general mechanical/VC spread considerations), rather than to avoid the general case. (I'm repeating myself a bit, sorry! I do feel quite strongly on this!)

Also, I'll say I don't have a huge problem with having "both side" Uniques. Like, a UU
that has "+10% combat strength against Shadowspawn and +10% combat strength
when adjacent to an allied Shadowspawn," as one example. It leaves out Neutrality,
theoretically, but that sort of thing is far less awful than full-on sidedness, IMO.

This seems like another good option for us to consider when we're coming up with uniques (this will likely be applicable to UAs more than other uniques).

You trivializing bastard!

(I have no idea why this particular image is hosted on the Plants vs. Zombies wiki.)

right. Agreed. Also, a neutral-oriented civ in the LB isn't likely to be all that
fun, honestly...

ever tried to play "true neutral" in old D&D...?

Agreed, I don't think we'd have any civs that specialize in being Neutral. I think, mechanically, that seems like it would be a specialization in any non-LB victory type and a situation in the current game where the player (thinks they) can win that victory despite the LB going on around them.

ooh, those ARE crazy. The last one in particular is kind of fun...

In any case, we've talked the abstract-aspect of SL/Aridhol to death at this point. Not
much needs to be said. Case by case, is the way to go, IMO. It's not appropriate for me
to assert any blanket statements over the propriety of Ar's link to SL - if a proposed
unique works, it works. So, tackle it later.

I reread this section here and realize that enormous proportions of my previous post may have been unnecessary. (But I have written them, so they are getting posted.) "if a proposed unique works, it works" is the a very succinct abstraction of what I'm going for with side-specific LB uniques. And that may totally have been what you were intending to say with your posts above.

If so, I must apologize for wasting both of our time.

That's the national motto, right?

We can put it on their civ icon! See, it does have some flavor!

yeah, no kidding. 31 is a lot. A few
months back in one of the other threads here, someone was asking about any fantasy
mods out there. I chimed in that we were developing this. They discounted it as an idea
that couldn't work, because their weren't enough civs to choose from in WoT...

Wow, well, maybe that guy's seeing this topic and eating his words as we speak/type! Given how aggressively we've culled the list already, I think hitting 43 eventually (sometime after our 2021 launch) is not unattainable, which would put us ahead of BNW.

Also, I double checked the above civ count just to be sure, and Google is way too good at things:

hmmm... I agree that PC Seanchan is the only fringe one that is worth considering. I
definitely can see the logic in at least trying the initial design of it before we kill it. I
think Far Madding is a fair one to abandon.
But then of course that means, as you say, that Saldaea, Arad Doman, and also Aldeshar
are cut.... Are these three civs worth keeping around for a little while, just so we cover
our bases (making our number, it seems, 23)? 20 is, after all, somewhat of an
arbitrarily-defined number. It seems like 23 may be the list we "feel good about." I
think part of the trickiness comes from some civs (Aramaelle) being included at the
expense of some that win the prominence war (e.g. Arad Doman).

Probably fine with not including Far Madding... but also fine with including it.

I'm happy to go over 20 if there are some we're still not happy to drop. I would be happy to drop Saldaea and Aldeshar at this point. Saldaea for redundancy - Shienar and Malkier fulfill its FLC roles better, IMO. Aldeshar for obscurity. But if you would prefer we go further with them then I'm up for that.

I'm fine with dropping Far Madding, so that brings us down to 22 at most.

By civ traits I mean "any of the things discussed above." That is to say, if we decide we
need more science ones in the mix, we tweak some (perhaps stretching the flavor) to
make them sciencey.

Sounds good!

But yes, I'd say we're on step 3 now. So, how should we go about that? I suppose its
just an issue of regurgitating the list (of 20 or however many) and including the semi-
agreed-upon characteristics, e.g. something like this:

America (Era 4-6, Wide, Domination/Cultural, no bias)

Is that enough info? I didn't want to do the list now because there are some things still
in contention - namely, the LB stuff, which could conceivably affect this. What shall
we do about the civs that we didn't agree on (as far as VCs, etc.). We could bounce
back and forth, but this is general and vague enough that it might not be worth the time
- I suppose we're just looking to see that we do, in fact, have a "healthy spread" of
things. So, I'd be fine if things weren't nailed down in this stage.

From there, we consider the whole, and tweak as necessary. I'm guessing this will just
be one round of posts.

Yeah, that seems like an appropriate level of detail for the next stage - so we're really just aggregating what we've gone through before. It lets us make sure it all still lines up like we expect, because all of these details were decided in parallel in separate quote blocks last time, so it will be good to look at the big picture.

Let's let the LB stuff collapse down a bit more before we do this, which may be quite shortly, depending on how much is left to discuss.

I'm convinced that we don't need to gimp the
uniques.

Coolio!

Also, I agree - let's do 3 Uniques!

Awesome! That's a major decision we've made very painlessly!

Actually, though, as a unit, I didn't really like using
the turtle ship that much... I guess I was just avoiding wars at all cost at that stage in
the game, so it felt wasted (lol, turtling!)

But what if that's what Firaxis wanted us to do?

They were in the house the whole time!

That reference was a bit forced. >.>

OK! So, yeah, next steps. Obviously the "spread" stuff described above, but then is step
#4, which involves more detailed flavor-dive (though most of the flavor has already
been dived, in my above long posts!) and brainstorming.

I suggest we actually not let it get to really long post blocks and stuff. I think
things have slowed down to an almost painful pace in the past month, and I'm actually
concerned that if we keep that up, we'll be essentially killing this mod.

I feel like, while in some ways it's nice to sit and think about a post for days, and have
tons of time in between replies (which is what I've done here, written parts of this days
ago), I feel like we're at our most effective when we're hashing through things more
quickly. I know of course that this is my fault, as I launched a huge framing post, but at
this point we're at a different point in the conversation.

So, I'm wondering if the best thing to do is to break things up into small groups, maybe
four or five civs, grouped together either logically, randomly, or otherwise arbitrarily.
From there, one of us does an initial "pitch" on the civs, then we whack them back and
forth until we have at least something decent, and then we move on to the next group.

While I think this method might make it easy to miss the forest for the trees, and forget
the big picture of things, I think it'll go a long way towards keeping things moving, and
also, preventing fatigue. If I learned anything doing the tech tree madness from around
era 1-5, its that my ideas in era 5 were way worse than in the earlier eras. I'm worried
that if we did a pass through all the civs, and then whacked that back and forth, the last
5, 10, or 15 civs may not be our best material (also, the quote blocks would be huge,
as would be the wait times between posting). So, long story less long: shall we break
them into small groups?

I would say that this last month has been a special case. I know you were a bit delayed in completing your post a couple of weeks ago (and it's only noticeable because you reply more quickly than I do normally!), but I was basically AWOL for 2 whole weeks because I was out of the country! I'm out of holiday for the year, so that shouldn't be the case again until 2017.

Related to designing fewer civs at once, I very much support this idea! When I'm able to get other things done on top of the post on a weeknight it means I'm much more able to do an every-day response.

We could do them in batches of 4, as you suggest, and simply use the order from the leaderboards above? (Probably the unweighted one.)

As far as what those initial brainstorms could be, I'm thinking we keep it pretty simple.
You *can* suggest mechanics, but you don't need to (though for UAs, you may at least
have to somewhat suggest them) - certainly don't get to specific. Of course, if you *do*
have a cool specific idea (especially with UA's), share it - but don't waste too much
time on it. We're not looking for details here. So, something like this:

Mereen (Era 5-7, Tall, Diplomatic/Cultural, plains)

UAs:
something based on slavery or freedom from it (food, production, happiness?)
Way of the Harpy (cultural bonuses when at peace?)
For the Mhysa (culture or happiness when spreading a Path)

UUs:
Pitfighter (Melee 4-5)
Unsullied (Polearm 5-7)
Son of the Harpy (Melee 7)
Great Master (Merchant Lord)
Sellsword (Melee 5-7, can only be purchased)

UBs:
Fighting Pits (happiness and XP?)
Pyramid (?)

UIs:
Pyramid
Sellsword Camp

In any case, you get the idea. Does that seem like enough? I figure we'd bat each one
back and forth a few times, eliminate a few that we really don't like, perhaps add a few,
and leave each with a collection of a few good options for each category (3? 4?). So,
I'm not suggesting at this phase we necessarily actually *decide* on which one works
(though we could). That could be the next stage.

Thoughts on that process?

This seems like a good level of detail for step 4! 3 or 4 options for each category sounds good, though some civs we may end up leaving with less than that if they're thin on flavor.

What does the Era range mean when next to the name of the civ? The eras where their tech-unlocked uniques unlock? Or a general statement of where they are dominant in the tree? (These two might be the same.) Or where in the tree their flavor-defined existence took place?

What about alternate interpretations of the same flavor? We can just put them in side by side as alternatives? Like:

House Stark

UB
Weirwood Grove (bonus vision during winter)
Weirwood Grove (culture from units killed)

Also bravo on using an ASoIaF civ as an example, that was a very cool idea. It explained the level of detail super clearly but also didn't affect any of our actual designs.

OK, I think that's where I end!

And in record time, same here!