Great Leaders only from war? I don't think so ...

[ChrisiusMaximus]

I have to agree with you vondrack,although I actually like to play the warmonger game I also like to be the builder and there is no way to get the GL leader benefits from peacetime.

Im not sure if Im right here but I think its more often the case from my experience that you get GL more often when you are the aggressor during an invasion than when defending your homeland from an enemy,though I have got them from defense but very rarely.Any thoughts anybody?

I fondly remember the day I got my copy of the much anticipated Civ3,I rushed home and set about devouring the manual (not literally)and was impressed with all the new ways to play and win especially through peacful gameplay.

There are lots of intracacies built into this game making it harder to be the warmonger ie reputation,strategic and luxury resouces and much more but as it stands now with the GL setup the warmonger has an unfair advantage that if you want you must emulate.

I can even remember the manual talking about how the developers wanted to make it harder to win by warmongering.I have to say that on the harder levels I find it necessary to kick ass from the off in order to survive.

[ThaddeusAlexander]

Okay there are a lot of great ideas flooding in now.

I realize you cannot get a GL from attacking barbs, but maybe they should change the 'Barbarian Uprising' so that they all come from a certain barbarian camp, more heavily guarded, that doesn't just pump out one large stint of barbs but lots continually, and you have a chance of getting a GL from sacking their HQ.

Again, feats like in CTP2 are a great idea, I think we can almost all agree on that one.

I'm still in big favor of three distinct types of GLs ...

Military GL
Chance to be produced by Elite unit military victory as now. Can be used only to create an army OR join a city to produce extra shield output in City Square and reduce corruption of home city.

Peaceful GL
Chance to be produced if city is captured by Culture or if a Feat is completed. Can be used to permanently increase the Happiness, Science output or Culture rating of its home city (city in which it joins).

Naval GL
Chance to be produced by Elite naval unit's military victory. Can be used only to rush oceanic Great Wonders (Lighthouse, Magellan's).

I really think we should rule out ENTIRELY the ability of a GL to create a wonder. Maybe only a small wonder or one more specific? Perhaps a military GL can rush Sun Tzu's Academy, or maybe a Peaceful one could rush Newton's like the Naval ones... take all the wonders and split them up?

Or is that getting too complicated ... mebbe

Still, Can nobody mod this in???

Cheers
~Thadalex

[vondrack]

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander
Military GL
Chance to be produced by Elite unit military victory as now. Can be used only to create an army OR join a city to produce extra shield output in City Square and reduce corruption of home city.

I would vote for the corruption+waste reduction bonus only. This would seem logical to me - a strong, respectable individual with a military background would enforce laws in such a way that the whole city economy would do better.

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander
Peaceful GL
Chance to be produced if city is captured by Culture or if a Feat is completed. Can be used to permanently increase the Happiness, Science output or Culture rating of its home city (city in which it joins).

I would not go for the city flip to be the trigger... it is already a great advantage if one acquires a city through culture flipping. Getting a leader as an added bonus seems too much... "Feats" would be great, but I doubt they could easily be added within the current framework of the game.

There is only one thing I can think of that could be added quite easily and that would make some sense... What about this: every turn, there would be a certain probability that a peaceful great leader emerges in the city with the highest scientific, commercial, or shield output in the whole world (there would be three types of peaceful leaders: scientific, commercial/economic, and... hmm... something like engineers or inventors? doesn't really matter what you call them... there might be a fourth category, "cultural" leaders, tied to the current cultural output of cities). The probability of a peaceful great leader "birth" would probably have to consist of two parts, one fixed, the other "dynamic":

PpeaGL = Pfix + Pdyn

The fixed (or constant) part, Pfix, would guarantee there would be at least some great leaders even in a totally peaceful game, the dynamic part would take care of balancing the number of military and peaceful leaders in a given game.

Pfix = GLmin / Ttotal

legend:
GLmin ... desired minimum number of great leaders per game (might depend on the number of civs in the game, the size of the map or whatever... but would be constant throughout the whole game)
Ttotal ... total number of turns from 4000BC to 2050AD (is it 540?)

The dynamic part, Pdyn, would be calculated every turn and would be aimed at giving the world approximately as many peaceful leaders as military ones from 4000BC to 2050AD (again, on average, of course):

Pdyn = (milGL / T * Ttotal - peaGL) / (Ttotal - T)

legend:
T .... current turn number
milGL ... number of military leaders already generated
peaGL ... number of peaceful leaders already generated

If you look at the dynamic formula, you can see that (milGL / T * Ttotal) sort of "estimates" (by extrapolation) how many military great leaders there will be in the current game. The numerator as a whole calculates how many more/less peaceful leaders there should be till 2050 AD to have about the same number of military and peaceful leaders in 2050 AD. The rest of the formula, "/ (T - Ttotal)", simply determines the peaceful leader birth probability that should be used to (theoretically) balance the leader numbers at 2050 AD.

The dynamic part could be positive (peaceful leaders being outnumbered by military ones at the moment) or negative (err... you get the idea), thus adjusting the basic fixed probability Pfix up or down.

After rolling a dice determining whether there would be a peaceful leader born or not (see the formulas above), another dice would be rolled to determine what kind of a peaceful leader should be born. This dice could be 3-sided (science, commerce, production) or 4-sided (add culture).

If this was implemented, it would actually make sense to build and maintain cities that would be scientific, production, and/or commercial centres, as such centres would be birthplaces to peaceful great leaders. Exploits should be prevented by the fact that the turns used to choose the world's best cities would be randomly determined based on the probability formula. The simple math behind would make sure builder players would have about the same chances to get great leaders as warmongers. This would also encourage growing cities past 20 citizens and using citizens as specialists... which is currently considered useless by elite players (at least that's my impression...).

All this assuming GLs would be stripped of their ability to hurry improvements and wonders. They could only be "joined" to cities, providing a sci/com/prod bonus (according to the leader "type"). Whether the bonus should be permanent or temporary, I'm not sure. Temporary (or gradually diminishing) bonus seems to follow reality a bit closer, while permanent makes leaders more valuable and perhaps more fun...

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander
Naval GL
Chance to be produced by Elite naval unit's military victory. Can be used only to rush oceanic Great Wonders (Lighthouse, Magellan's).

I would suggest making Naval leaders simply one variation of Military leaders. They would be able to create Naval Armies or they could be joined to coastal cities for a corruption/waste bonus. Naval Leaders could move to coastal, sea, ocean, and coastal city tiles only. No wonder rushing, please.

Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander
I really think we should rule out ENTIRELY the ability of a GL to create a wonder. Maybe only a small wonder or one more specific? Perhaps a military GL can rush Sun Tzu's Academy, or maybe a Peaceful one could rush Newton's like the Naval ones... take all the wonders and split them up?

I would vote for entirely stripping their rushing abilities. Make them less powerful (basically, just nice bonuses), but at the same time a less unbalancing factor in the game.

Errr... Geeze, is there anyone actually interested in the maths? Sorry for the lengthy and perhaps boring post...

[HazieDaVampire]

i don't know if any of the other wonders were made because of war, but i think the Colossuss on Rhodes island was created because Rodes managed to stop an invasion, I think!
Thats the only wonder that i can thing of that was created because of war!

The Great wall on the other hand was to protect from war! So it was kinda made for war!

[Destroyer]

Originally posted by HazieDaVampire

Thats the only wonder that i can thing of that was created because of war!

Manhattan Project?

[vmxa1]

The UN is due in large part to having too many wars.

[Admiral PJ]

Just allow GL's to be built perhaps, for each trigger for the GL.

Or a GREAT way would be to give you a great Leader if you are at peace with everyone, but only every 100 turns maybe. these leaders would only give 300 production to a build, or an army though giving more tech research would be best for peaceful leaders.

Having triggeres would be good.. like :
the first person to get 2500 gold, first person to get 5000, 10000 etc,
First person to Get philosophy,
first person to get Scientific method. Everyone would get a GL at millitary tradition maybe.
Explorers could make leaders some how.. if they explore 300 blank squares they make a leader.

If we have an events system manager we could make that produce GL triggers.

Finally : What about the greatest city every 500 years gets a GL.. would make some use of the Great cities screen.
We need a Naval Nelson leader!

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
Errr... Geeze, is there anyone actually interested in the maths? Sorry for the lengthy and perhaps boring post...

I consider myself having a technical and analytical thinking, but I just wasn't able to convince my mind to comprehend your formula

Seriously now, I agree with many of the previous ideas.
To add some of my own ideas and also to summarize a bit:

Military GL
- Chance to be produced by Elite unit military victory as now.
- Can be used to create an army
- Being held in a city would decrease corruption and waste in that city
- Could hurry a military great or small wonder (Great Wall, Manhattan Project, Military Acadamy, Pentagon, etc)

Naval GL
- Chance to be produced by Elite naval units
- Can be used to create a naval army
- Being held in a coastal city would decrease corruption and waste in that city
- Could hurry naval great or small wonder (Lighthouse, Magellan’s Voyage)

Scientific, Commercial, Production or Cultural GL
- Chance to be produced: (there are several ideas here that look good)
Every turn, there would be a certain probability that a peaceful great leader emerges ...
1. ...in the city with the highest scientific, commercial, or shield output in the whole world. The probability of a peaceful great leader "birth" would be calculated with a complicated formula (see Vondrack’s post)
2: same as 1, with “civ” instead of “city” (the civ with the highest ...)
3. ... after building a fixed number of a specific type of improvements (five universities or five banks or five factories, etc)
4 ... after certain first-time discoveries (first time discovery of philosophy, or economics, and so on)
5 ... after certain first-time achievements (first library in the world, first university, first marketplace, first factory)
6 ... in any city that has been celebrating WLTwhateverDays for at least x turns
- Being held in a city would increase the science, commerce, production or culture output of that city, accordingly
- Could hurry a great or small wonder, but only the proper type of wonder (so Scientific GL could hurry the Great Library, Copernicus, SETI; Commercial GL the Colossus, Adam Smith, Wall Street; Production GL the Iron Works, etc. The Cultural GL is a bit tricky, because there are no “culture” flags for wonders, so I’d associate them with happiness wonders: Sistine, JS Bach’s, etc)

Any GL, if not used to hurry a wonder, would automatically die after 20 turns.

[vondrack]

Originally posted by Tiberius
I consider myself having a technical and analytical thinking, but I just wasn't able to convince my mind to comprehend your formula

Oh, well...

Originally posted by Tiberius
- Being held in a city...

I added the boldface myself... I am not sure if just keeping one's leader in a city should do the trick. That would mean the current one-leader-at-any-moment limit would have to be waived... I would prefer having to "join" leaders into cities permanently... also because of I would prefer if leaders added a permanent bonus to a city, not just a 20-turn bonus as you suggest at the end of your post (but I do understand your reasons for proposing so).

Originally posted by Tiberius
1. ...in the city with the highest scientific, commercial, or shield output in the whole world. The probability of a peaceful great leader "birth" would be calculated with a complicated formula (see Vondrack’s post)
2: same as 1, with “civ” instead of “city” (the civ with the highest ...)

My reason for choosing a "city" instead of a "civ" was to give a chance to small civs that focus on developing flourishing cities insted of expanding ad nauseam (which is basically the warmonger path). But "civ" could be fine, too, if we choose a different criterium like "Literacy", "Desease" etc... at least, the demographics screen would finally become more than just eye candy...

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by vondrack
at least, the demographics screen would finally become more than just eye candy...

My thoughts exactly. The same with the top5 cities screen.
I think it could work:
1. separately: the civ or the city could trigger separately the birth of a GL
or
2. together: having the best civ and the best city (in a certain area: science, culture, etc) would double your chances for a GL.

It could be any of these or something else. We're playing with new ideas here, not finetuning.

I am not sure if just keeping one's leader in a city should do the trick. I would prefer having to "join" leaders into cities permanently... also because of I would prefer if leaders added a permanent bonus to a city, not just a 20-turn bonus

I thought that adding a leader to a city to produce a bonus for an unlimited time is a bit to much of an advantage.
Despite my objections, I have no problems with your suggestion, I think it's a useable one, too. I just like mine more because holding the GL in a city for 20 turns gives you the possibility to use it later to hurry a wonder; in the same time, forcing the GL to die after a number of turns, eliminates a little from the terrible advantage of rushing a wonder.

I think both solutions are workable, though. Again, it's not finetuning, so we should keep both ideas as possible solutions, unless one of them is proved to be completely undoable (?what an ugly word, but I don't remember other with the same meaning ; I should have continued my english lessons )

Should I rewrite my summary accordingly or are there other ideas/objections/corrections/amendments ?

[Tiberius]

Off topic:

undoable (?what an ugly word, but I don't remember other with the same meaning)

I found it:
unachievable or unrealizable

[Proserpine]

Some interesting ideas here - for Civ4!

Instead of completely removing the ability to rush a Wonder, why not reduce the rush factor (e.g. reduce by 1/3 or half the time to create a Wonder). Just a thought.

[HazieDaVampire]

Originally posted by Destroyer


Manhattan Project?

I didn't think that far up the line,
and wasn't manhattan project somthing created to harnice nuclear power and then changed to making a nuke.

[ThaddeusAlexander]

Originally posted by HazieDaVampire


I didn't think that far up the line,
and wasn't manhattan project somthing created to harnice nuclear power and then changed to making a nuke.

You are partly correct ... the name of the project at Large was the Manhattan Project and was to harness nuclear power and see what could be done with it. Once they realized its bomb-making capabilities they relocated the 'nuke' research/creation branch to Montreal and named it the Montreal Project (but as a whole, its simply the Manhattan Project).

Cheers
~Thadalex

[Hail Caesar!]

I have to address this topic because I play almost exclusively as either America (builder) or Romans (warmonger).

When I play as America, by the Middle Age I can get build wonders in 12-15 turns, and since I have a tech advantage as well, the AI won't catch up to me.

When you play as militaristic, really your biggest advantage in the game practically requires you to be warmongering. It makes no sense to sit there and be peaceful. Great Leaders offset your opponent's advantage by allowing you to build Wonders just as fast as they can.