Small Complaint

[hobbes321]

Something that bothered me about Civ V and looks like it will continue to bother me in BE - the diplomatic text for all leaders appears to be virtually identical. When one leader condemns you, he or she says the exact same thing as when anyone else does. Why do the developers choose to do this? It seems like this would be an excellent way to add some flavor to the various leaders, who at times can seem to be a bit too bland. It's also something that would be incredibly easy to do, so long as they have a half-decent writer on staff.

Anyone else with me?

 

[GenEngineer]

Likely done as a design decision to make sure you immediately know what a message means, for ease of use. First Time introductions have unique text, and the fact that the quotes for technologies are from them mean they are capable and willing to do flavor things to flesh out the leaders, meaning there was likely a reason behind not doing it at every opportunity.

 

[hobbes321]

Yeah, I figured that might be the reason. But it doesn't seem to be a very good reason. Isn't there a heading above the text that explicitly says what the leader is doing? (e.g. so and so is denouncing you!) It also shouldn't be too difficult to include text that clearly communicates what the leader is doing.

 

[Stringer1313]

I started a thread on this a few weeks ago saying the same thing --- so needless to say, I also agree with you, and it's a complaint that I've had about every Civ iteration since Civ I. They finally did it in SMAC, which I loved, but then reverted back. But it appears that folks like us are in a tiny minority and people just don't care about it.

I can see the argument for having the same text for each leader --- eventually you no longer linger on the diplo screens and you want to move through the game as quickly as possible --- thus, having different text for each leader forces you to read it only to discover that it has the same effect as different text for another leader. I can also see how unique flavor text can be distracting --- so in SMAC, if you were Miriam and you were condemned for pounding your precious bible, you never actually did anything that involving bible-pounding so it was arguably weird.

However, the easy workaround to this is to simply have a parenthetical at the end of the text (they do this in Civ 5 already) explaining the practical consequences of what is happening (e.g., they are condemning you, or whatever).

Another compromise I hope they already did, is to at least have different flavor text for different AFFINITIES, as that would actually communicate something about the ideology that they've adopted and care about.

Edit: Saw after posting that folks basically made the same above points

 

[Lord Shadow]

While the text is the same, I'm not sure the actual speech is. At the very least, like in Civ5, it's said in the leader's own language.

 

[hobbes321]

I started a thread on this a few weeks ago saying the same thing --- so needless to say, I also agree with you, and it's a complaint that I've had about every Civ iteration since Civ I. They finally did it in SMAC, which I loved, but then reverted back. But it appears that folks like us are in a tiny minority and people just don't care about it.

I can see the argument for having the same text for each leader --- eventually you no longer linger on the diplo screens and you want to move through the game as quickly as possible --- thus, having different text for each leader forces you to read it only to discover that it has the same effect as different text for another leader. I can also see how unique flavor text can be distracting --- so in SMAC, if you were Miriam and you were condemned for pounding your precious bible, you never actually did anything that involving bible-pounding so it was arguably weird.

However, the easy workaround to this is to simply have a parenthetical at the end of the text (they do this in Civ 5 already) explaining the practical consequences of what is happening (e.g., they are condemning you, or whatever).

Another compromise I hope they already did, is to at least have different flavor text for different AFFINITIES, as that would actually communicate something about the ideology that they've adopted and care about.

Ack, sorry for the repost. But I do want to second the idea that different affinities yield different flavor texts.

I also agree that this is, in general, something that SMAC did extremely well. What sticks with me about that game, after all these years, is the mood it created, and that mood is in part generated by little additions of this sort.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Stringer1313]

I agree that SMAC created a dark, sci-fi "mood" with the flavor text. It brought you into thinking about a world where a bunch of people with crazy ideologies had the opportunities to create a new world in their image -- I also liked that each city even looked different. That mood feels gone, and now it's just a bunch of bland bureaucrats from earth trying to make it who even say the same text. None of the backstories for each leader are remotely near as interesting as the crazy backstroies behind the SMAC leaders.

Again, if they aren't going to make the leaders feel meaningfully different from each other, then my hope is that they at LEAST make the leaders different depending on what affinities they adopt. I can at least buy into the fiction that a bunch of bland bureaucrats land on a new planet, and eventually come to adopt an extreme ideology that makes them very different from the other leaders.

 

[EddieTheLion]

Yeah I wish they had unique dialogue for the leaders. To make it easy to interpret they could just have their effect in parentheses (DECLARES WAR!) (DECLARE ALLIANCE?) (ACCEPTS DEAL) etc. like for declarations of war in Civ5.

The sad thing is that the leaders DO have unique dialogue, in sound. Why can't we just see translations of their speech? (same in Civ5).