Dynasties, Royal Families, and Politicians instead of Permanent Rulers

[alexwebb2]

One small gripe that I've always had with Civ games is that you play an invincible leader with a 6000 year lifespan.

Why not implement some Rome: Total War style leadership, where the player chooses his successor?

For example, you could start out as Dynasty A, which has its own particular traits and bonuses. After 10 turns or so, those bonuses change slightly and you have the option to either retain that dynasty or choose from two or three new ones, with their own distinct bonuses.

This process continues until the game slows down a bit, and then you switch over to Royal Families. These are basically dynasties by another name, except that they do not last anywhere near as long (year-wise... turn-wise, they'd be the same, or very similar).

Finally, when you get to, say, the 1800s, you shift over to individual Politicians. These could be somewhat random (as in R:TW), or they could be civ-specific and selected from a list.

Each leader could have a favorite civic, a personal religion, etc... for example, installing a leader with a minority religion could serve to promote that particular religion. There's a ton of different directions you could go with this.

Any feedback on this would be appreciated. Would people want something like this in their game? Do you have any ideas on how to implement this?

[Loader2k]

I liked the concept in RTW however I dont think it would fit
well into civ. Civ's strategic view is broader than choosing
your successor every few turns. It's one of those details that
arent mentioned in the game. Civ's scope is too broad in my
opinion that players should be bothered with assigning their
little boy as successor.

However it would be a great idea for a scenario like the
Japan scenario in civ3's expansion - there you actually had a
leader, your Daimyo, who could fight battles and be
upgraded. In such an environment your idea would be pretty
cool i think.


Actually (nitpickingly ;-)) you are not playing a leader who
lives for 6000 years - for example in the Civilopedia entry for
bureaucrazy it is mentioned that the civic gets its bonus for
the capital because the bureaucrats guarantee functioning
daily matters for the state during change of governments.

[alexwebb2]

Ok, so I've decided that I'm going to make this mod myself and I need some input on a couple of things. First of all, what traits should the leaders be able to have? What bonuses should they give?

For example, in RTW, the trait "Sobriety" has levels Sober, Abstemious, and Teetotal, which gives increases bonuses to management and increasing penalties to popular standing. "Warlord" has gives bonuses to command and law. In Civ4, we could have similar traits that will give bonuses to production, technology, foreign relations, etc.

What traits should be in, and what bonuses/penalties should come with them?

[alexwebb2]

Example

Ok, I just whipped this up really quick as an example for anyone who hasn't played Rome: Total War. This is a very, very rough idea of what sort of traits you could give each politician. For example, the politician Arthur Murphy (the first name that came up in the random name generator) could be randomly given the traits "Artist - Amateur" and "Charismatic - Likeable". Thus, if you choose him to be your leader, then for the next few turns you'd get a bonus of 5% to your culture and +2 in all foreign relations. Then, after a few turns when it's time to choose a new leader, let's say Arthur has changed a little bit and the world has realized that he is actually an "Artist - Total Joke" and that he is "Charismatic - Trusted". You'd have the option of keeping Arthur, with the -10% culture and +3 foreign relations that he brings to your empire, or choosing a new leader instead with his own traits.


Artist
-----Total Joke
----------Culture -10%
-----Amateur
----------Culture +5%
-----Skilled
----------Culture +10%
-----World-Famous
----------Culture +25%

Banker
-----Fraud
----------Income -10%
-----Professional
----------Income +10%
-----Financial Genius
----------Income +20%

Military Man
-----Soldier
----------Unit Cost -5%
-----Colonel
----------Unit Cost -10%
-----General
----------Unit Cost -20%

Bad Attitude
-----Arrogant
----------Foreign Relations -2
-----Complete Jerk
----------Foreign Relations -3

Charismatic
-----Likeable
----------Foreign Relations +2
-----Trusted
----------Foreign Relations +3
-----Charming
----------Foreign Relations +4

[Bill3000]

This is a very, very rough idea of what sort of traits you could give each politician.

...hmm. Actually, why don't you use the specialists?

[alexwebb2]

In place of politicians? That doesn't fix the 6000-year-old-leader issue...

I am considering giving the politicians traits that are similar to what you would get from a specialist, only much bigger. The leader has to affect the empire in some significant way, not just give one or two extra production points to the capital.

[gdijedi7]

Negatory. It would be interesting for enemy leaders to change. One turn, China is your best friend, the next turn, Mao takes over and nukes you. Perhaps have a random or event based "Civil War" or "Revolution" where leaders and attitudes could switch, but if I choose Washington, I don't want to suddenly become Roosevelt.

[cbdude]

is this idea dead i was hoping it would happen, sounds great to me.

[greenday_234]

I was just thinking the same thing cbdude. If implemented correctly I think this would be great

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by alexwebb2
In place of politicians? That doesn't fix the 6000-year-old-leader issue...

I am considering giving the politicians traits that are similar to what you would get from a specialist, only much bigger. The leader has to affect the empire in some significant way, not just give one or two extra production points to the capital.

I like the idea of ever-living leaders...It is part of the CIV characterisation.

But I do like the idea of giving leaders some exta traits...

How about giving each leader a new 'representative' at the onset of
every epoch or era, that has these bonuses and penalties?

[Tokyo Sexwale]

I like the way they built all the Civs with a 6000-year lifespan, but this sounds like a cool and interesting mod to try out. Perhaps the first step would just be to mod the already existing leader traits into a scheme like this.

So your first era, you could be eg. Saladin: Phi/Rel and then in 100 years or whatever you get to choose between Maladin: Phi/Mil, Baladin: Rel/Art and Galadin: Fin/Mil. So you have to choose a new leader that best suits your current strategy.

Not sure how the AI's would do this tho'. Probably have to be a random thing for them.

[alexwebb2]

This mod is very much alive. :-)

I've been posting most of my updates on CivFanatics, but I suppose I should start posting them here too so people don't have to check both boards.

As of right now, the actual functions are about halfway done. I can generate a random leader name, assign the traits and report information about them, and morph the traits over time. Once I'm done copying the functions I've written out and adapting them for dynasties and royal houses, I'll be just about done with the functions.

At that point, I will need some help to start working on the actual Civ4 interface for the program, and then we will have to wait for the SDK to really start integrating the functions.

[Grandpa Troll]

Please keep us informed, sounds awesome

Thanks a bunch!

[Praetorium]

Hi Im new here and started playing Civ3 last year and bought civ4 when it came out. I like it but I always thought about the idea changing the leader or having a leader out in the field. I think you have a great idea (alexwebb2) but I not able to help you since of still new to this. But I like getting into the game and trying to change things around good luck and hope it happens.

[Ari]

Perhaps this should be related to the form of government you choose. Monarchy would have, say, a base .9 multiplier to production with a random +/- .3 added to that, changed every n turns to reflect the varying abilities of successive rulers. Moving to more advanced forms of government might increase base multipliers, but have other consequences (remember in civ 2, when a republic or democracy would *force* you to accept peace, or would forbid you from declaring war?). Rather than focusing on individual politicians, you could focus on the party in power. If it was "your" party, then you'd have freedom/bonuses, whereas if it was the "opposition" party then perhaps certain choices of yours would be overruled. Imagine going to war with someone only to find that the "voters" were so pissed that they kicked your party out of power. Suddenly the "approval rating" stat in the demographics would be more than a meaningless representation of the number of happy and sad faces in your cities.

One fringe benefit of a system like this is that it would slightly push a civilization from a collection of city-states, as it resembles now, to actual nations.