Killing the 6000-Year-Old-King

[DarkCloud]

This could be good-
If- but only if you get different bonuses based upon which King ascends to the throne.

You start with some 'genes' to give to your king

Power/Might
Intelligence
Strategisim

Then his children and line have different ratings based upon the original King/Queen's ratings.

It's like the Sims/Tropico's genes, but with CIV!

You then get extra bonuses based upon what the King is best at.

[KrazyHorse]

I can't believe people are taking this seriously. You are the player, and CivIII is a strategy game. Being a strategy game, the player "calls the shots". He decides how best to manage his civ over 6000 years. This means that no matter what sort of veneer of change you attempt to put on, there is a constancy of personality. So, while it may be beneficial and fun for AI leaders to change intermittently (I think Firaxis has stated that this will be the case) it is silliness to claim that the leader of your civ can change with any degree of realism.

[Captain]

In principle, it's a good idea - BUT not for the way CIV is currently set up.
If you changed leaders every 50-60 years, that would be every THREE turns at the start of the game! That is way too frequent, it would make the game unplayable.

In the CIV series so far, you aren't really a mortal human leader - you're more like the Spirit of the Nation. I think the Civ manual says 'Guiding Spirit' but I think of it more as you 'possess' whoever the current leader/ruler is, and thus there is a continuum of your ambitions and strategies. When your people are no more, then your Spirit dies.

An alternate solution which incorporates the whole death of the ruler aspect (which was very significant in history), was using the fixed linear time scale so that you would play as a ruler for those 50-60 years but have sufficient #turns to actually accomplish something - whether it was 1turn=1 yr or 1 turn=1 month. This would make CIV too long to play as a single game, but instead it would be broken up into episodes (lifetime of each ruler), and played as single games that could be 'continued' (similar to Homeworld) by starting a new episode as the successor to your last episode's ruler. This of course, would be much more in depth and possibly just over the top for non-hardcore players.

[Sean]

I don't like this idea.

1) It unneccasirly complicates the game. I would soon geted annoyed at having to "reset" options every 20 turns.

2) Yes a 6000yr King is unrealistic...but this isn't real life...its a game first and formost!!!! This aspect of the game isn't broke, so there is no need to tinker with it. Realism is nice, aslong as it doesn't interfere with good gameplay.

"If you want realism, play two turns and then DIE"

[Kc7mxo]

See, your character is one of those guys from Highlander. Thats why its ok.

[MidKnight Lament]

It's not such a silly suggestion that people don't keep coming up with it. So I wouldn't feel bad about it.

But it's just unneccessary complexity for a game on such a grand scale as Civ. It's much more suited to a game over a smaller time-period.

[DarkCloud]

Yes, but if the king that ascended did so quietly with but one announcement about the bonuses you would be experiencing...

Then the game would make you the "God of the Romans" and not just the "King of the Romans", you would influence the leader by ordering him what to do.

This would give micromanaging a good reason to be computer oriented if the player wants it, because he lets the "King" run that himself while the "god" orders troop movements, etc.

[rah]

*GENERAL DISCLAIMER*
I do not want to see this as part of CIVIII, just give me a good AI
*END*

In the old NES series Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, they incorporated it quite easily. As you aged your capabilities started to deterioate. You had characteristics similar to the old D&D days that influenced actions. Every few years you would get announcements that you had a son or daughter born and they would list their characteristics. You could offer your daughters to other rules to seal pacts (when they got old enough). For the boys, you would have to determine (based on how decrepit you were becoming) when it would be best to retire and turn the kingdom over to him. (and which son if you had many)
It really added a lot of interest to the game, and it was fun to get the notice that you had a new son. (that looked like he would be a great general some day, or a great scholar)

But in this game the span of time was only a couple of hundred years. Any attempts to REALISTICALY do this in a game that spans 1000s of years would make it a major annoyance.

Fun to discuss, but don't even think about adding it.

RAH
*end of tirade

[tniem]

Yeah more realism...

[Earwicker]

Cool. Thanks for all the feedback. Just thought I'd suggest something that might help around a perceived problem. Honestly, the issue of eternal ruler never really bugged me before -- but it occurred to me that might be a good optional challenge. A way around the ruts of gameplay that no matter what civ you're playing it gets into a prolonged, stable democracy, which suddenly switches to a prolonged, stable Fundy for a war, then back to the prolonged, stable democracy. Effective game strategy but sometimes it would be cool to have a monkey wrench in the works. But only sometimes.

Oh, yeah: forgot to say before that I definitely would NOT want a change every four years as a democracy, realism or no realism.