The Leader Paradigm

[sir_schwick]

What is the leader of a civlization in Civilization?

Currently the leader might as well be a placeholder that makes discussing a particular game better. Civ leaders are not selfish, hedonistic, crafty, and did not have to worry about the house dividing itself.

Why should we[CFCers] care?

Many empires fell because of poor leadership. Others started to crumble because of internal strife. Many civil wars and power struggles came from within a civilization. Also, why does Hiwatha remain in power after a revolution? Some of us really hate the current great leader system. This system would allow all these to be handled in a compelling manner.

You have complained long enough. How will you change this?

First I eliminate the idea that the leader who starts the game is the only potential leader within that civilization. Each city would have a potential leader in the governor. Each building produces its own leader. The population as a whole has its own leader it produces. Each military unit produces a potential leader. Each advance would produce a leader. Representative governments would have a senate composed of at least one member for each city and one for the ruling body. All the advisors would be potential leaders.

There would be a heirarchy of leaders in line for ruling the civilization(this is assuming the idea that even in democracies there is shadows moving the political system). The top is the leader of the civilization and his children in a Monarchy(another leader). The next level is any of the advisors. The next level is the senate, if it exists. After the senate is the governors. After the governors is anyone connected within a city. Each of the leaders will try to move to the next best position, Banker becoming Governor, then becoming Senator, then becoming Military Advisor, then becoming President.

Does this mean leaders die eventually?

Lets say they do not ever die from old age. Assassination, forced resignation, and rebellion are all methods of eliminating those above you. Sometimes a body of the leaders will demand the removal of the civs leader because of incompetence or part of a power play.

What is special about one leader versus another?

Each leader has their own vices, virtues, bonuses, and penalties. I'll give an example of each and where it will help. Vices include; Horny(gives out information to seductive spies easily), Ran from Battle(military officer who ran, does not inspire militant parts of society or military). Virtues include: Charismatic(other civs will negotiate more friendly), Perceptive(can tell when other leaders, foreign and domestic is lieing or planning mischief). Bonuses include: Financier(maintenance -5% on improvement they run, city they run, or on civ if Domestic Advisor or civ head), Expert Fighter(-80% chance success for enemies to assassinate). Penalties include: Gluttonous(all gold from Marketplaces and Banks in city or nation is negated on taxes to support leaders vices).

What happens to great leaders?

These would still appear, although for more then just science and military victory. They would have relatively better strengths versus weaknesses compared to other leaders.

How does this affect Civ?

Now much of your espionage efforts involve your relationship with foreign and domestic leaders, not just the civ leader. Also, whenever a leader is ready to take over, they may start a civil war, especially military ones. Also, the strengths and weakness of leaders may ruin or raise a civilization to greatness.

This is all very complicated and too much like an RPG.

You might be right, so an option to play with the current leader paradigm would also be avaliable. Also, any suggestions to simplify this would be appreciated.

 

[dh_epic]

This is an interesting idea and I'd like to see more weight thrown behind it...

Yet for all the factors that are involved in directing history, I'd put this on a lower priority, simply because of the nature of how Civ has been.

I'd rather have Civ 3 + improved trade, or improved diplomacy, or improved culture. Civ 3 + improved leaders is a neat idea and I know it would tie into other improvements very well, but alone it's almost all aesthetic.

 

[sir_schwick]

I do agree you would have to redesign parts of Civ around this new leader paradigm. However, almost all major events in history could be said to have originated between the interaction between leaders. Some of these leaders led nothing at the time, but became leaders later. Fundamentally all human activity is based on interaction between people. The culmulative effect of all these interactions lead to our everyday life.

In light of the Civ system though, you might be right that it is not as important a factor. I will do some thinking over this and make some ammendments.

 

[Jon Shafer]

For better or worse, the Civ franchise is more of a god-game than a leader game. This isn't Crusader Kings or Europa Universalis II.

 

[plastiqe]

I dunno, the system from the Total War series would be alright, but I'm kind of attached to the always the same leader civ system.

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah. I'd like to see it make a lateral move to the dynasties and historic storyline arcs around famous leaders... but Trip is pretty apt to call Civ a God game. It's a huge drastic change to get the impact of leaders, which I'm not sure is much compared to the impact of economics, or the impact of social engineering.

The major impact of famous leaders, I think, is as follows:

- bring people together temporarily
- envigorate the economy temporarily
- envigorate the military temporarily
- change the reputation of the nation (for better or for worse) temporarily

And vice versa, upon death, some of the worst things have happened.

- the kingdom is divided among the generals / heirs
- the government changes drastically
- the people lose pride in their nation
- their reputation gets a fresh start internationally

I think a lot of this can be accomplished with golden ages and great leaders. Maybe great leaders should have a timespan that envigorates a mini-golden-age. We've heard of many, whether economic, military, or overall socially progressive (for better or for worse). "Pax Romana", "Manifest Destiny", "Perestroika", "The Cultural Revolution", "The Great Leap Forward", "The New Deal", "Enlightenment" ... under certain circumstances, one might be able to instigate one of these big jumps forward, a 10 turn boost.

With reprocussions at the end, should the boost be abused and overextended.

Perhaps they could be instigated when a great leader appears. Perhaps a great leader could be used to trigger one of these mini-golden ages (instead of rushing a wonder or building an army).

Just brainstorming.

 

[Milan's Warrior]

I like the idea of a new leader system, but I think (I am not sure) that designing leader-heads is very expensive.
I think any new leader-system must come up with a convincing way of disposning of the leaderheads

 

[sir_schwick]

I never liked the animated leader-heads. I say you just go with nice Portraits, maybe with different moods such as angry, pensive, cautious, evil, etc.

Trip, you are right that Civ is fundamentally a God game and not a leader-game. What if this system was more a background mechanism to explain the rise and fall of empires. You are not the leader, but you do get to monitor the movement of these leaders. Also, part of your espionage and other efforts are based aroudn interactions between leaders from other civs and yours. Suppose your King is weak, but the mayor of a prominent city woudl be a strong leader. He is also friendly with a neighbor the king is not. The neighbor agrees to help him become leader of the nation because it works out best for both of them. Of course interactiosn of this kind could only occur with the players permission. This is much how the US now has to deal with the Saud Royal Family.

Also, imagine it is much harder to occupy certaint territory, or not very beneficial. However, you can manipulate the government by manipulating leaders and replacing ones that disobey you. This is much like US dominance in the Western Hemisphere over the past 200 years(1804 was the Monroe Doctrine).

This way you are still the spirit of your civilization.

 

[Jon Shafer]

I think that idea has promise. Included in the core game.... Neyeeehhhh...

Maybe something to put on the "to-mod" list though.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Your suggested leader system is realistic and thought up well...but please do not include it into civ. Civ is, as mentioned above, a god game, civ players like to be in charge (although some like me hate MM). Negotiations and espionage with sub-leaders will require them to have some personality, own goals and so on, the suggested system will have to be built up from scratch.

There was already a discussion about leaders earlier, as summary people dont mind having different leaders (also religious and cultural for instance) with different impacts on your civ, but the system should be kept as it is with leaders popping up with %chance after an event.

Would you as a player like your civ splitting up becaue one of the AIs bribed one of your leaders to start a revolt? I say keep them as they are, puppets of YOUR will.

 

[sir_schwick]

I do see that this system would require a paradigm shift of the role of the player in Civ. That may be a good or bad thing, but it is an expensive thing so this discussion for Civ 4 is pretty moot. But for Civ 5.....

 

[dh_epic]

It could make a neat mod.

I still think there's some merit to grouping periods of time into historic-arcs (not ages, but something more dynamic). Rome had a distinct arc. So did the British empire. So did Soviet Russia. I think this is somewhat encapsulated by golden ages, but mini-golden-ages might be a neat pursuit to get some of this evolution-revolution stuff in a society.

The triumphs of a great leader and the drawbacks when they die.