[GS] Why not change leaders over differnet era?

[chordate]

I know this is not the tradition of civilization series, but compared to having the same leader over thousands years, do you think changing leaders over different era is more natural? When discussing the new contents of game we alwalys talk about leaders, and which leader is most suitable to a civilization. Changing leaders over time will give we more leaders slots of a civilization and alleviate this problem.For example, w can have King arthur -> Alfred the great->Churchill as leaders of England( just an example.) If we want the game more dynamic and interesting, we can even compete for next leader just as great person system. For example, If I am playing Rome, and choose next leader as Frederick Barbarossa my civilization become holy Roman Empire. If I choose tsar Peter my civilization become Russia (Many cviilization have claimed themselves to be the successor of ROme. It is a big change of system but I hope it can be put in civ VII.

 

[Morningcalm]

Would create a need for way more leaders, and way more assets. I don't think Firaxis would go for it. Different bonuses in eras, maybe--they did that in Civ: Revolution. But even 2 leaders for each civ is 80--imagine trying to get that all animated, voice-recorded, and polished. Not likely.

 

[ehecatzin]

Yeah given the amount of work that needs to be done to fully design and animate a leader It would not make much sense for them to only last 1 era.

 

[cosmicmangobear]

I’m totally on board with multiple leaders, but it does present a logistics problem. Also, what would civs like America do for an ancient era leader? Or who would lead Sumer in the modern era?

 

[Patine]

I know this is not the tradition of civilization series, but compared to having the same leader over thousands years, do you think changing leaders over different era is more natural? When discussing the new contents of game we alwalys talk about leaders, and which leader is most suitable to a civilization. Changing leaders over time will give we more leaders slots of a civilization and alleviate this problem.For example, w can have King arthur -> Alfred the great->Churchill as leaders of England( just an example.) If we want the game more dynamic and interesting, we can even compete for next leader just as great person system. For example, If I am playing Rome, and choose next leader as Frederick Barbarossa my civilization become holy Roman Empire. If I choose tsar Peter my civilization become Russia (Many cviilization have claimed themselves to be the successor of ROme. It is a big change of system but I hope it can be put in civ VII.

A wistful desire for a workable mechanic for dynastic/succession leadership can be seen in discussion going to Civ2 in the late '90's. MicroProse, followed by Firaxis, to my knowledge, as never even responded to, or acknowledged, that perennial fan question/suggestion once.

 

[Morningcalm]

A bigger problem beyond the logistics is what each new leader would actually add. If it's just going to be ping-ponging between multiple leaders to chew scenery for a few seconds between era shifts, each leader will have reduced impact, importance, and character, and mostly come to be seen as a series of bonuses. Maybe if dynastic shifts were interesting, that could work, but that's venturing too much into Crusader Kings territory, and Civ is not the same kind of game, even if both use history as a backdrop and happen to be strategy games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

A bigger problem beyond the logistics is what each new leader would actually add. If it's just going to be ping-ponging between multiple leaders to chew scenery for a few seconds between era shifts, each leader will have reduced impact, importance, and character, and mostly come to be seen as a series of bonuses. Maybe if dynastic shifts were interesting, that could work, but that's venturing too much into Crusader Kings territory, and Civ is not the same kind of game, even if both use history as a backdrop and happen to be strategy games.

Multiple Leaders in Civ's timescale are still going to be an abstraction, like the "Immortal Symbol of the Civ" leaders we have now. Let's face it, in a game in which the Minimum Turn is 1 year long, how do you represent 69 AD when Rome had 5 Emperors in One Year?
Trying to represent dynastic shifts, death in battle, effects of plague, bad clams, jousting accidents, exploding cannon - the number of 'random' ways that Leaders changed is almost endless, and really belongs in a game with a much more discrete time reference: Europa Universalis manages it, but that game only covers about 1/20th of the time Civ VI does, and, frankly, it can be interminably dull at times and at other times overwhelming in the sheer amount of Random or Near Random Events thrown at you.

What would be a more likely and interesting mechanism in Civ, would be to show the Results of Change in Leaders: the civil wars, revolutions, religious unrest/war, change in Diplomacy, etc. that those plagues, bad clams, and exploding cannon caused. Firaxis could keep their lovingly-animated cartoons as Figureheads, while the game could include some of the Events and Decisions that variations in leadership caused . . .

 

[Naktis]

Prob way to many work , also giving each different personality...

What could be done is make leaders dress and look differently depending on eras , like CIv3 did

 

[Patine]

Prob way to many work , also giving each different personality...

What could be done is make leaders dress and look differently depending on eras , like CIv3 did

Abe Lincoln's dorky Visigoth helmet and Alexander's ill-fitting, Mafiaso-style suit were real awful memories, among others...

 

[Morningcalm]

Multiple Leaders in Civ's timescale are still going to be an abstraction, like the "Immortal Symbol of the Civ" leaders we have now. Let's face it, in a game in which the Minimum Turn is 1 year long, how do you represent 69 AD when Rome had 5 Emperors in One Year?
Trying to represent dynastic shifts, death in battle, effects of plague, bad clams, jousting accidents, exploding cannon - the number of 'random' ways that Leaders changed is almost endless, and really belongs in a game with a much more discrete time reference: Europa Universalis manages it, but that game only covers about 1/20th of the time Civ VI does, and, frankly, it can be interminably dull at times and at other times overwhelming in the sheer amount of Random or Near Random Events thrown at you.

What would be a more likely and interesting mechanism in Civ, would be to show the Results of Change in Leaders: the civil wars, revolutions, religious unrest/war, change in Diplomacy, etc. that those plagues, bad clams, and exploding cannon caused. Firaxis could keep their lovingly-animated cartoons as Figureheads, while the game could include some of the Events and Decisions that variations in leadership caused . . .

Revolts and civil disobedience would be nice—many of the leaders in Civ faced it and had to deal with it. Many a king has had to hobble the nobility or bow to it, one or the other.

I do think changes in diplomacy need to be more important. Right now it gives a diplo hit but it isn’t exactly obvious. I liked how in Civ IV leaders would force you to make choices—“Convert to our religion! We like you and want you to see sense!” Or “Convert to our religion or face my Spanish soldiers!”

In Civ VI even promises don’t mean too much diplomatically. Many a time have I fulfilled a promise for a hostile AI only to see them attack me anyway. Meh.

 

[JamesFaith]

How would you play for modern states like America or Australia without old times leades? Or when civ is conquered and destroyed, (Byzantines and Ottomans or Aztecs and Mexico), would you be forced to chose conqueror leader or ignore him and continue with fictive one from old civilization? Not to mention that modern era would demand using more leaders who died too recently or are still living and can be seen as controversial.

This would work only with some civs and would limite choices.

 

[JamieLanger]

I know this is not the tradition of civilization series, but compared to having the same leader over thousands years, do you think changing leaders over different era is more natural? When discussing the new contents of game we alwalys talk about leaders, and which leader is most suitable to a civilization. Changing leaders over time will give we more leaders slots of a civilization and alleviate this problem.For example, w can have King arthur -> Alfred the great->Churchill as leaders of England( just an example.) If we want the game more dynamic and interesting, we can even compete for next leader just as great person system. For example, If I am playing Rome, and choose next leader as Frederick Barbarossa my civilization become holy Roman Empire. If I choose tsar Peter my civilization become Russia (Many cviilization have claimed themselves to be the successor of ROme. It is a big change of system but I hope it can be put in civ VII.

This might exponentially increase the burden on the developers
The effort it takes to design and implement a leader or any character is out of imagination

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

How would you play for modern states like America or Australia without old times leades? Or when civ is conquered and destroyed, (Byzantines and Ottomans or Aztecs and Mexico), would you be forced to chose conqueror leader or ignore him and continue with fictive one from old civilization? Not to mention that modern era would demand using more leaders who died too recently or are still living and can be seen as controversial.

This would work only with some civs and would limite choices.

The only way I can see it being done, if done at all, would be to use leaders in semi-sequence with no direct link to dates.
For instance, Washington, Adams, Madison or Jefferson would be Ancient/Classical Era leaders for the USA, Jackson, Monroe, Polk for the Medieval/Renaissance Eras, Fillmore, Lincoln, Grant for the Industrial Era, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Hoover for the Modern/Atomic Eras, and I think George H. W. Bush would be the latest leader you could use for the Information Era.
For some Civs it would still be very hard to find a half dozen or more potential leaders, and you would still have leaders showing up well before or after their 'historical' Eras, but at least you should be able to come up with a different leader for each Era - and, therefore, potentially some different Uniques for each Era for each Civ.

 

[Socrates99]

The only way I can see it being done, if done at all, would be to use leaders in semi-sequence with no direct link to dates.
For instance, Washington, Adams, Madison or Jefferson would be Ancient/Classical Era leaders for the USA, Jackson, Monroe, Polk for the Medieval/Renaissance Eras, Fillmore, Lincoln, Grant for the Industrial Era, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Hoover for the Modern/Atomic Eras, and I think George H. W. Bush would be the latest leader you could use for the Information Era.
For some Civs it would still be very hard to find a half dozen or more potential leaders, and you would still have leaders showing up well before or after their 'historical' Eras, but at least you should be able to come up with a different leader for each Era - and, therefore, potentially some different Uniques for each Era for each Civ.

That's the route I'd imagine. If theres going to be 3 leaders just put them in chronological order. Would work for civs that dont exist anymore too.

On a side note, GWB? I honestly can't think of a good information era president but he might be the absolute worst. I'd take Kennedy or Ike as the latest leader for the US.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That's the route I'd imagine. If theres going to be 3 leaders just put them in chronological order. Would work for civs that dont exist anymore too.

On a side note, GWB? I honestly can't think of a good information era president but he might be the absolute worst. I'd take Kennedy or Ike as the latest leader for the US.

I was not making any judgement of his worth as a president, just that he's the latest to serve who is also no longer living and therefore a legitimate candidate for exclusion in the game.
In the Atomic/Information Eras, I would tentatively rate L. B. Johnson as the most effective domestically, Reagan as the most effective in Foreign Policy (although he had the advantage that his chief opponent, the USSR, was going to collapse regardless of anything he did), Kennedy the most inspiring, Truman the most pragmatic. You could also modify any Leader's rating (not just in the USA) by including the effectiveness of the Ministers and other subordinates they had to work with. The effect of a Cardinal Richelieu or Lord Pitt, a George Marshall, Lloyd George or Tallyrand, should be included in the game somehow without having to deal with another list of 'Great People' topped into your Civ at random.

 

[Morningcalm]

The only way I can see it being done, if done at all, would be to use leaders in semi-sequence with no direct link to dates.
For instance, Washington, Adams, Madison or Jefferson would be Ancient/Classical Era leaders for the USA, Jackson, Monroe, Polk for the Medieval/Renaissance Eras, Fillmore, Lincoln, Grant for the Industrial Era, T. Roosevelt, Taft, Hoover for the Modern/Atomic Eras, and I think George H. W. Bush would be the latest leader you could use for the Information Era.
For some Civs it would still be very hard to find a half dozen or more potential leaders, and you would still have leaders showing up well before or after their 'historical' Eras, but at least you should be able to come up with a different leader for each Era - and, therefore, potentially some different Uniques for each Era for each Civ.

You could easily have different Uniques for each Era for each Civ without requiring the creation of extra leaders and burdening Firaxis beyond reason. Civ: Revolution had each civ gain new different bonuses in later eras. I can see a Civ game doing that. I cannot see a Civ game expanding from 40+ leaders to 100.

Too many leaders spoil the broth. Keep uniques #unique.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

You could easily have different Uniques for each Era for each Civ without requiring the creation of extra leaders and burdening Firaxis beyond reason. Civ: Revolution had each civ gain new different bonuses in later eras. I can see a Civ game doing that. I cannot see a Civ game expanding from 40+ leaders to 100.

Too many leaders spoil the broth. Keep uniques #unique.

Full Disclosure: I dislike the entire Immortal Leader concept intensely. And since Civs V and VI tie some of the Civilization's Unique Attributes to the specific leader, it leads to inanities like 6 different Modded versions of China (in Civ V and VI both), each with a different leader and therefore each playing like a different civilization.

But. The game, the designers and the game community seem to firmly wedded to having a 'Leader' to personalize the Civ, so I'm afraid we are stuck with it.

The problem with it, as the Modding community immediately realized, is that any Civ which has lasted any time at all has multiple possible leaders, each having different 'characteristics' that can be applied to the Civ. This, in turn, leads to the Major Problem: Historically, Civilizations survived because the Civ and its leaders evolved and changed to deal with the changing situation with which they were faced. In the game, this is flat impossible, and your Civ is basically given a single 'toolbox' to handle all the challenges of a 6000 year span.

The answer is not to have Mods or DLCs giving you multiple Leaders, but to have each Civ given the flexibility to handle, for better or worse, the challenges of the entire game span and not just be tied to one or two leaders who handled a tiny fraction of that span. Essentially, we stuff all of French history into (at present) less than 80 years in two Eras. That is ridiculous, but it is now accepted as 'normal' for the game.

So, yes, the idea of having different Uniques per Era would be better. In fact, there could be a selection of both Civ-particular and 'standard' Uniques for each Era, and the choice available might even be linked to the state of your Civilization: Dark or Heroic Ages giving different choices than Golden Ages. There is something to be said for getting a 'Leader' Attribute or Unique that matches your specific Civ Challenges.

 

[Socrates99]

Full Disclosure: I dislike the entire Immortal Leader concept intensely. And since Civs V and VI tie some of the Civilization's Unique Attributes to the specific leader, it leads to inanities like 6 different Modded versions of China (in Civ V and VI both), each with a different leader and therefore each playing like a different civilization.

But. The game, the designers and the game community seem to firmly wedded to having a 'Leader' to personalize the Civ, so I'm afraid we are stuck with it.

The problem with it, as the Modding community immediately realized, is that any Civ which has lasted any time at all has multiple possible leaders, each having different 'characteristics' that can be applied to the Civ. This, in turn, leads to the Major Problem: Historically, Civilizations survived because the Civ and its leaders evolved and changed to deal with the changing situation with which they were faced. In the game, this is flat impossible, and your Civ is basically given a single 'toolbox' to handle all the challenges of a 6000 year span.

The answer is not to have Mods or DLCs giving you multiple Leaders, but to have each Civ given the flexibility to handle, for better or worse, the challenges of the entire game span and not just be tied to one or two leaders who handled a tiny fraction of that span. Essentially, we stuff all of French history into (at present) less than 80 years in two Eras. That is ridiculous, but it is now accepted as 'normal' for the game.

So, yes, the idea of having different Uniques per Era would be better. In fact, there could be a selection of both Civ-particular and 'standard' Uniques for each Era, and the choice available might even be linked to the state of your Civilization: Dark or Heroic Ages giving different choices than Golden Ages. There is something to be said for getting a 'Leader' Attribute or Unique that matches your specific Civ Challenges.

What you're describing kinda sounds like the government and policy system. Different tools evolving over different eras and such.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What you're describing kinda sounds like the government and policy system. Different tools evolving over different eras and such.

Except that the current Governments and Policies work the same for all Civs, What I would want, is something similar to the Leader Attributes that are now tied to a given leader for the Civ Forever, and 'divorce' them from the nominal Leader and each Era (or other 'trigger' mechanism) the Civ gets a new set of Leader Uniques to choose from - some 'standard' some completely unique to the Civ. It's the Unique to the Civ part that is not covered by the standard Government/Policy system in use now.

You would still be stuck with the 'nominal' Civ Leader for Eternity, but the Effective Leader would change. Given the addiction of the developers to animated leaders, I think it is a more realistic wish than expecting them to give us a new animated Leader every Era, or even more than 2 per Civ - and that only after several DLCs, as now in Civ VI.

 

[acluewithout]

In a way, I’d love Civ to have a leader and advisor system similar to EU4. But ultimately, I think individual leaders are too granular for Civ.

To me, the immortal leader represents sort of a cultural construct. Your Civ is never led by Teddy Roosevelt. Instead, Teddy the leader exists at the level of ideas, and the player can only see and interact with these leaders because they’re playing at a “god” level of the game.

The implementation of Governors was a bit of a missed opportunity here. They would have been so much better if you competed for them like great people, or instead represented “great families” rather than individuals.